Interrogating Inclusive Growth

The high growth performance of the Indian economy since the launch of economic reforms in the early 1990s has been much lauded. But how much of this growth has made its way to the poor? In a radical assessment of ‘inclusive growth’, this book probes the impact of neo-liberal policies on employment, poverty and inequality. It critiques the claim that market-friendly economic reform policies ‘trickle down’ to the poor and reduce poverty and deprivation. The author uses exhaustive data — from the formal and informal sectors — to create a profile of the aam aadmi. He advocates the need for a broad-based growth and development strategy that alone will address the many-sided social and economic inequalities in India. The volume will be useful to scholars and students of economics, development studies, labour studies, and sociology.

This collection brings together internationally-renowned experts to offer a comprehensive review of how politics shapes inclusive development in the global south. Each aspect of development is covered: social, economic, environmental and cultural, with each substantive chapter offering a systematic review of the evidence in the relevant field.

This collection brings together internationally-renowned experts to offer a comprehensive review of how politics shapes inclusive development in the global south. Each aspect of development is covered: social, economic, environmental and cultural, with each substantive chapter offering a systematic review of the evidence in the relevant field.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Rising inequality and widespread poverty, social unrest and polarization, gender and ethnic disparities, declining social mobility, economic fragility, unbalanced growth due to technology and globalization, and existential danger from climate change are urgent global concerns of our day. These issues are intertwined. They therefore require a holistic framework to examine their interplay and bring the various strands together. Leading academic economists have partnered with experts from several international institutions to explain the sources and scale of these challenges. They gather a wide array of empirical evidence and country experiences to lay out practical policy solutions and to devise a comprehensive and unified plan of action for combatting these economic and social disparities. This authoritative book is accessible to policy makers, students, and the general public interested in how to craft a brighter future by building a sustainable, green, and inclusive society in the years ahead.

Inequality has drastically increased in many countries around the globe over the past three decades. The widening gap between the very rich and everyone else is often portrayed as an unexpected outcome or as the tradeoff we must accept to achieve economic growth. In this book, three International Monetary Fund economists show that this increase in inequality has in fact been a political choice—and explain what policies we should choose instead to achieve a more inclusive economy. Jonathan D. Ostry, Prakash Loungani, and Andrew Berg demonstrate that the extent of inequality depends on the policies governments choose—such as whether to let capital move unhindered across national boundaries, how much austerity to impose, and how much to deregulate markets. While these policies do often confer growth benefits, they have also been responsible for much of the increase in inequality. The book also shows that inequality leads to weaker economic performance and proposes alternative policies capable of delivering more inclusive growth. In addition to improving access to health care and quality education, they call for redistribution from the rich to the poor and present evidence showing that redistribution does not hurt growth. Accessible to scholars across disciplines as well as to students and policy makers, Confronting Inequality is a rigorous and empirically rich book that is crucial for a time when many fear a new Gilded Age.

The recent global financial crisis has increased the scope of poverty and inequality. The gap between the richest and poorest nations has become wider. National income inequality has also been on the rise. The prospect of a shift in designing and implementing development and welfare policies is strong in this new environment. The neoliberal policies of the Washington Consensus are giving way to development models which look to a more active government role in both economic and social policies. Meanwhile, in the parallel universe of welfare policy a fundamental realignment is already taking place. Faced with the current economic and social challenges, policy communities have turned to a variety of instruments to ensure that growth and social inclusion go together. This book offers a systematic analysis of the growing convergence on these matters in the development and welfare state literatures, utilizing the experiences of a myriad of jurisdictions around the world. Drawing upon the expertise of leading international policymakers, practitioners, and academics in the field, this book critiques the theoretical underpinning of growth and development, examine welfare state perspectives on inclusive growth and social/economic development, and presents lessons learned and best/worst practices from the experiences of developing and developed nations.

Interrogating the New Economy is a collection of original essays investigating the New Economy and how changes ascribed to it have impacted labour relations, access to work, and, more generally, the social and cultural experiences of work in Canada. Based on years of participatory research, sector-specific studies, and quantitative and qualitative data collection, the work accounts for the ways in which the contemporary workplace has changed but also the extent to which older forms of work organization still remain. The collection begins with an overview of the key social and economic transformations that define the New Economy. It then illustrates these transformations through examples, including essays on wine tourism, the regeneration of mining communities, the place of student workers, and changes in the public service workplace. It also addresses unions and their responses to the restructuring of work, as well as other forms of resistance.

"The book-project workshop 'Inequality and inclusive growth' (Nuffield College, Oxford, 10-11 November 2016)"--Page 188.