Ebook Economic Growth, Poverty And Income Inequality
Economic growth, poverty and income distribution are central, inter-related facets of much economic analyses and discussions about current trends in countries across the globe. Recent writings include Anthony B. Atkinson’s “WIDER Annual Lectures 3 (1999) on the question: Is Rising Income Inequality Inevitable? A Critique of the Transatlantic Consensus, Francois Bourguignon’s paper to the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations in 2004: “The Poverty-Growth–Inequality Triangle”, Nancy Birdsall’s WIDER Annual Lectures 9 (2005) entitled “The World is not Flat: Inequality and Justice in our Global Economy”, and the World Bank’s World Development Report 2006 on Equity and Development.
These writings constitute a rebirth of longstanding tradition in the discipline of political economy which can be traced to the time of Adam Smith. It was also certainly a feature of the work of Sir Arthur Lewis in whose memory this Conference is being held. Lewis in his Theory of Economic Growth and other writings extensively examined the determinants and the dynamics of economic growth on the premise that economic growth would alleviate poverty. For Lewis, writing in 1938, there could not have been “many places in the world which touch the depths of West Indian poverty or show so little progress.” (Quotation in Tignor 2006, page 45).
The challenge was how to achieve economic growth and reduce poverty. Lewis in much of his early writings analysed the role of savings and capital accumulation, education and technology, productivity and foreign trade, each of which is influenced by and influences income distribution. He also analysed the role of institutions which condition the working of markets, including in respect of income shares. (For a discussion of this latter aspect of Lewis, see Bourne and Attzs, 2005 pages 27-28).
In this Lecture, I deal with all three facets, i.e., economic growth, poverty and income distribution from a Caribbean perspective, drawing on both the data and empirical findings by various authors specific to the Caribbean as well as on a wider body of economic literature.
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