This paper examines the relationships between economic growth, income distribution, and poverty for 17 Asian countries for the period 1981-2001. It deals with two distinct but related issues. First, it investigates how much growth is required to offset the adverse effect of an increase in...

This paper has two main objectives. First, it assesses and measures the gaps inthe stock of human capital across the world. It presents how effectivelydifferent regions are improving their stock of human capital, and how long itwill take for developing countries to catch up with the current...

This paper analyzes the equity of opportunity in basic education and infrastructure services in seven developing countries, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Viet Nam. The analysis applies a method developed by the World Bank called the Human Opportunity...

There are significant income and nonincome development gaps around theworld. Closing these gaps will require not only increasing and sustainingeconomic growth in low-income regions, but also policies that closenonincome development gaps directly. Governments need to support privateinvestment and...

This study proposes an approach to measuring inclusive growth. It draws from the idea of a social opportunity function akin to a social welfare function. In this context, growth is defined as inclusive if it increases the social opportunity function, which depends on two factors: (i) average...

The main objective of this paper is to compute an international poverty threshold based on the food requirement that ensures adequate calorie intake for the world’s poorest. The study proposes a new methodology based on consumer theory to provide a caloric-based international poverty...