The debate among governments, economists, and NGOs about how much the world’s poor benefit from economic growth seems unending. Last year The Economist claimed that “Growth really does help the poor: in fact it raises their incomes by about as much as it raises the incomes of everybody else.” Yet, in a letter published soon after by the same magazine, Justin Forsyth of Oxfam claimed that “..current patterns of growth and globalization are widening income disparities and hence acting as a brake on poverty reduction.”
The debate among governments, economists, and NGOs about how much the world’s poor benefit from economic growth seems unending. Last year The Economist claimed that “Growth really does help the poor: in fact it raises their incomes by about as much as it raises the incomes of everybody else.” Yet, in a letter published soon after by the same magazine, Justin Forsyth of Oxfam claimed that “..current patterns of growth and globalization are widening income disparities and hence acting as a brake on poverty reduction.”