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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
How Long Will It Take To Lift One Billion People Out Of Poverty?, Martin Ravallion
How Long Will It Take To Lift One Billion People Out Of Poverty?, Martin Ravallion
Martin Ravallion
Alternative scenarios are considered for reducing by one billion the number of people living below $1.25 a day. The low-case, “pessimistic,” path to that goal would see the developing world outside China returning to its slower pace of growth and poverty reduction of the 1980s and 1990s, though with China maintaining its progress. This path would take another 50 years or more to lift one billion people out of poverty. The more optimistic path would maintain the (impressive) progress against poverty since 2000, which would instead reach the target by around 2025-30. This scenario is consistent with both linear projections …
Are There Lessons For Africa From China’S Success Against Poverty?, Martin Ravallion
Are There Lessons For Africa From China’S Success Against Poverty?, Martin Ravallion
Martin Ravallion
At the outset of China’s reform period, the country had a far higher poverty rate than for Africa as a whole. Within five years that was no longer true. This paper tries to explain how China escaped from a situation in which extreme poverty persisted due to failed and unpopular policies. While acknowledging that Africa faces constraints that China did not, and that context matters, two lessons for Africa stand out. The first is the initial importance of productivity growth in smallholder agriculture, which will require both market-based incentives and public support. The second is the role played by strong …
China's (Uneven) Progress Against Poverty, Martin Ravallion, Shaohua Chen
China's (Uneven) Progress Against Poverty, Martin Ravallion, Shaohua Chen
Martin Ravallion
While the incidence of extreme poverty fell dramatically in China over 1980-2001, progress was uneven over time and across provinces. Rural areas accounted for the bulk of the gains to the poor, though migration to urban areas helped. Rural economic growth was far more important to national poverty reduction than urban economic growth; agriculture played a far more important role than the secondary or tertiary sources of GDP. Taxation of farmers and inflation hurt the poor; local government spending helped them in absolute terms; external trade had little short-term impact. Provinces starting with relatively high inequality saw slower progress against …