"While substantial research finds that financial development boosts overall economic growth, we study whether financial development disproportionately raises the incomes of the poor and alleviates poverty. Using a broad cross-country sample, we distinguish among competing theoretical predictions...

Previous Poverty and Shared Prosperity reports have conveyed the difficult message that the world is not on track to meet the global goal of reducing extreme poverty to 3 percent by 2030. This edition brings the unwelcome news that COVID-19, along with conflict and climate change, has not merely...

Moldova has experienced rapid economic growth in the past decade, which has been accompanied by reductions in poverty and good performance in shared prosperity. Nonetheless, Moldova remains one of the poorest countries in Europe and faces challenges in sustaining the progress. The challenges for...

This report documents the progress South Africa has made in reducing poverty and inequality since the end of apartheid in 1994, with a focus on the period between 2006 and 2015. The main conclusions are as follows: First, by any measure, South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the...

Vietnam has achieved remarkable success in reducing poverty while controlling inequality. The country's broad-based growth reflects the government's focus on developing labor-intensive export sectors while investing heavily in human capital that saw the country exceed its peers. However, gains...

This policy note was prepared in parallel to the report Pakistan at 100 - Shaping the Future. The report Pakistan at 100 discusses options to accelerate and sustain growth in Pakistan so that the country becomes an upper middle-income country when it turns 100 years old in 2047. This policy note...

Around the world, countries use a wide variety of poverty measurement methodologies. A common method used to measure poverty is based on levels of consumption - a person is considered poor if his or her consumption level falls below some minimum level necessary to meet basic needs. This note...

In 2015, a large share of Egypt's population was either poor (27.8 percent) or not poor but vulnerable to falling into poverty (an additional 28.7percent); most of the poor and vulnerable lived in the governorates of Upper Egypt. Clearly the country faces a challenge, but it also has the...

The previous decade in Egypt was marked by major internal and external shocks that have surely had severe implications for the evolution of the population's welfare. In recent years, social, political, and economic changes have transformed the landscape of the Egyptian society. On January 2011,...

The objective of this report is to present a snapshot of the welfare landscape in Djibouti that will help stakeholders understand poverty's determinants. Exploiting data from the 2017 household expenditure survey, as well as administrative and geospatial data, it provides a detailed analysis of...