How Good is Growth?

Abstract

This paper argues that the use of different methodologies for characterizing the well-being of the poor can lead to totally different views about the relationship between economic growth and poverty. The paper focuses on “general means”, which are well-known income standards that place greater weight on lower incomes. In contrast to results obtained using the “mean income of the bottom 20 percent of the distribution”, the paper finds that growth is good for the poor, but not necessarily as good as for other sectors of the population.