The authors rely on a series of growth accounting exercises to determine whether the growth rate of total factor productivity (TFP) or the unexplained portion of GDP growth (after controlling for the accumulation of capital per worker) in 18 Latin American and Caribbean economies has benefited...

Except during the Great Depression, the historical path for per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the United Stateshas been reasonably stable exponential trend growth, with modest cyclical deviation. Graphically, growth in the United States displays as a modestly sloping, only slightly...

Growth is pro-poor if the poverty measure of interest falls. According to this definition there are three potential sources of pro-poor growth: (1) a high rate of growth of average incomes; (2) a high sensitivity of poverty to growth in average incomes; and (3) a poverty-reducing pattern of...

The"stylized fact"that distribution must get worse with economic growth in poor countries before it can get better turns out not to be a fact at all. Growth's effects on inequality can go either way and are contingent on several other factors. The authors found no sign in the new cross-country...

Output collapses, and crises are a fact of life. Severe economic downturns occur periodically, and have grave consequences on the poor. The authors propose a new measurement for economic downside risk, and severity: Growth at risk. Similar to the concept of Value at Risk in finance, Growth at...

The authors reexamine the role of financial market development in the intersectoral allocation of resources. First, they characterize the assumptions underlying previous work in this area, in particular, that of Rajan and Zingales (1998). The authors argue that Rajan and Zingales (1998)...

Starting with a general impact indicator as an evaluation criterion, The author offers an integrative framework for a unified discussion of various concepts and measures of pro-poor growth emerging from the current literature. He shows that whether economic growth is considered pro-poor depends...

After years of poor economic performance, many Latin American countries undertook ambitious programs of macroeconomic stabilization andstructural reform in recent years. This change in policy created high expectations for the region, and some observers have questioned whether actual growth...

Do the poor face the same prospects for escaping poverty in high-inequality developing countries as in low-inequality countries? Is it possible for inequality to be so great as to stifle prospects of reducing absolute poverty, even when other initial conditions and policies are favorable to...

These days it seems that almost everyone in the development community is talking about"pro-poor growth."What exactly is it, and how can we measure it? Is ordinary economic growth always"pro-poor growth"or is that some special kind of growth? And if it is something special, what makes it happen?...