Abstract
The recent focus on ‘pro-poor growth’ led also to an intense debate on how exactly to define and to measure pro-poor growth. All suggested measures have in common that they are based on the anonymity axiom. Such a perspective may provide a very incomplete picture given that the common objective of most studies investigating the pro-poorness of growth is to test whether specific policy reforms where beneficial to the initially poor or not. I suggest a new concept of pro-poor growth which removes the anonymity axiom, and, using an illustration based on data from Indonesia and Peru, I check whether the assessment of pro-poor growth is different when an anonymous and a non anonymous approach to pro-poor growth is used. I also suggest an original decomposition of poverty changes over time which links both concepts. The results show that the choice of the approach has a drastic impact on the interpretation of the data.
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Grimm, M. Removing the anonymity axiom in assessing pro-poor growth. J Econ Inequal 5, 179–197 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10888-006-9038-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10888-006-9038-4