The relationship between growth, inequality, and poverty lies at the heart of development economics. It has been, and remains, one of the most controversial topics. Indeed, very few of the other core areas in development economics can compare with the shifts, reversals, and reaffirmations of views that have characterized the analysis of the interaction between growth, poverty, and inequality. Evidence that inequality and poverty rose in the 1980s and 1990s in many countries, including some of the OECD countries, rekindled the ongoing controversies, which have not so much evolved as fluctuated ... More

The relationship between growth, inequality, and poverty lies at the heart of development economics. It has been, and remains, one of the most controversial topics. Indeed, very few of the other core areas in development economics can compare with the shifts, reversals, and reaffirmations of views that have characterized the analysis of the interaction between growth, poverty, and inequality. Evidence that inequality and poverty rose in the 1980s and 1990s in many countries, including some of the OECD countries, rekindled the ongoing controversies, which have not so much evolved as fluctuated over the past 50 years.