We analyze the cross-national distribution of GDP per capita and its evolution from 1970 to 2003. We argue that peaks are not a suitable measure for distinct growth regimes, because the number of peaks is not invariant under strictly monotonic transformations of the data (e.g. original vs. log...

Poverty reduction is entirely determined by the growth rate of population’s mean per capita income1 and by the change in the distribution of income. This places the empirical relation between growth and inequality at the heart of poverty reducing strategies. This study, which estimates the...