High inequality in incomes and assets and persistent poverty continue to plague Latin America and remain a central economic policy challenge for Latin American policymakers. At the same time, dramatically improved methods and data allow researchers to analyze these problems and how they are...

In this paper we examine the mathematical relationship between growth and distributional change on absolute (i.e. percentage point) changes in FGT poverty measures assuming a log-normal distribution. We also test the empirical relationship of the derived semi-elasticities of growth and...

In many developing countries, there does not exist a time series of nationally repre- sentative household budget or income surveys, while there often are urban household surveys as well as nationally representative Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) which lack information on incomes. This...

Spurred by international commitments and expanded funding at the national and international level, attendance in education and associated years of schooling have expanded substantially in developing countries in recent years. But has this expansion in enrolments reduced existing inequalities in...

This paper critically reviews the recent changes to the Global Poverty numbers generated by the World Bank in 2008. While they have little impact on observed poverty trends and while there are good reasons to believe that the previous numbers were on weak foundations, the new numbers on levels...

Pro-poor growth has been identified as one of the most promising pathways to accelerate poverty reduction in developing countries. The diagnostic pro-poor growth toolbox has so far focused on the income dimension as well as key non-income achievements in education and health. This article...