Growth is Failing the Poor: The Unbalanced Distribution of the Benefi ts and Costs of Global Economic Growth

During 1990-2001, only 0.6 per cent of additional global income per capita contributed to reducing poverty below the $1-a-day line, down from 2.2 per cent during 1981-1990, and barely half the poor’s share of global income. Coupled with the constraints on global growth associated with climate change, and the disproportionately adverse net impact of climate change on the poor, this casts serious doubt on the dominant view that global growth should be the primary means of poverty reduction. Rather than growth, policies and the global economic system should focus directly on achieving social and environmental objectives. JEL Classifi cation: D31 (Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions), D63 (Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement), Q56 (Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounting).