Distribution and Development : A New Look at the Developing World

by Gary S. Fields

• ISBN13: 9780262062152
• ISBN10: 0262062151
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-01-22
• Publisher: Mit Pr

Summary

Most of the world's people live in "developing" economies, as do most of the world's poor. The predominant means of economic development is economic growth. In this book Gary Fields asks to what extent and in what circumstances economic growth improves the material standard of living of a country's people. Most development economists agree that economic growth raises the incomes of people in all parts of the income distribution and lowers the poverty rate. At the same time, some groups lose out because of changes accompanying economic growth. Fields examines these beliefs, asking what variables should be measured to determine whether progress is being made and what policies and circumstances cause some countries to do better than others. He also shows how the same data can be interpreted to reach different, even conflicting, conclusions. Using both theoretical and empirical approaches, Fields defines and examines inequality, poverty, income mobility, and economic well-being. Finally, he considers various policies for broad-based growth. Copublished with the Russell Sage Foundation.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
The Distributional Effects of Economic Growth	1	(12)
An Introduction to the Issues	1	(2)
The Major Approaches to Distributional Analysis	3	(4)
Income Distribution as a Multifaceted Concept	7	(1)
Some Important Methodological Preliminaries	8	(3)
Plan for the Volume	11	(2)
The Meaning and Measurement of Income Inequality	13	(22)
The Meaning of Inequality	14	(4)
Lorenz Curves and Lorenz Curve Comparisons	18	(5)
Lorenz Curves and Inequality Comparisons	23	(1)
A Note on Dominance Analysis in Theory and Practice	24	(4)
Inequality Measures and Lorenz Comparisons	28	(4)
About the Gini Coefficient	32	(1)
Summary	33	(2)
Economic Growth and Inequality: A Review of the Empirical Evidence	35	(38)
The Kuznets Curve	35	(30)
Influences on Inequality	65	(4)
Conclusions	69	(4)
The Measurement of Poverty	73	(22)
Introduction	73	(1)
Setting a Poverty Line	74	(2)
The Concept of Poverty	76	(6)
Four Groups of Poverty Measures	82	(4)
Poverty Dominance	86	(5)
The Concept of Relative Poverty	91	(3)
Summary	94	(1)
Does Economic Growth Reduce Absolute Poverty? A Review of the Empirical Evidence	95	(10)
Inferences from Cross-Section Evidence	96	(2)
Intertemporal Evidence	98	(4)
Poverty Reduction and Growth: Individual Country Experiences	102	(2)
Conclusion	104	(1)
The Meaning and Measurement of Income Mobility	105	(34)
Five Mobility Concepts	106	(20)
The Different Mobility Concepts in Certain Stylized Examples	126	(4)
Mobility Measures and Axioms	130	(7)
Conclusions	137	(2)
Growth and Income Mobility: Some Initial Evidence for the Developing World	139	(20)
Peru	139	(6)
Malaysia	145	(2)
Chile	147	(2)
China	149	(5)
Cote d'Ivoire	154	(1)
India	155	(1)
Conclusion	156	(3)
The Meaning and Measurement of Economic Well-Being	159	(14)
Types of Approaches	159	(2)
Social Welfare Functions Based on Vectors of Utilities or Incomes	161	(4)
Abbreviated Social Welfare Functions	165	(2)
Welfare Dominance Results	167	(3)
Similarities and Differences among the Various Approaches	170	(2)
Conclusions	172	(1)
Empirical Comparisons of Economic Well-Being	173	(18)
Comparisons of Economic Well-Being: The Methods Reviewed	173	(1)
The Case of Taiwan	174	(4)
The Case of Thailand	178	(3)
The Case of Indonesia	181	(1)
The Case of Brazil	182	(3)
The Case of Chile	185	(2)
Conclusions	187	(4)
Distribution and Development: Policies for Broad-Based Growth	191	(34)
Introduction	191	(1)
Stimulating Economic Growth	192	(12)
Distributional Policies	204	(18)
Conclusions	222	(3)
References	225	(28)
Index	253