A Decomposition of Poverty Tre across Regions: The Role of Variation in the Income and Inequality Elasticities of Poverty

The impact of globalization on global and local inequality is hotly debated in the recent literature. This study considers the separate issue of the impact of globalization on poverty through quantifying explicitly the responsiveness of poverty to aggregate changes in income distribution. We illustrate the quantitative importance of such an approach through decomposing poverty trends observed in the six major developing regions over the period 1980-98 under the assumption of a log-normal income distribution. We find that differential income growth accounts for most of the diversity in poverty trends, both across regions and over time, but leaves a substantial amount of variation unexplained. The impact of changes in inequality is relatively small, except in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Income and inequality elasticities of poverty change.[Research Paper No. 2005/36]