No Growth Without Equity

This work examines the relationship between equity and growth in Mexico. It looks at how specific inequalities in power, wealth and status have created and sustained economic institutions and policies that both tend to perpetuate these inequalities and are sources of inefficiences in the economy.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

Equity is an abstract concept covering philosophical issues such as fairness and social justice, making its definition and measurement complex. This volume tackles these complexities head-on. The book is enriched with many empirical analyses and provides a comprehensive analysis of equity ranging from concepts and measurements to empirical illustrations and policy implications. After an extensive discussion on equity in the introduction, this volume begins with a chapter on well-being where the concepts of functioning and capability are discussed. This is followed by a few chapters on what an equitable distribution is and how equity can be measured. The volume then provides a definition and a methodology to measure equitable growth, examining the relationship between growth, inequality, and poverty. It also presents various empirical illustrations and country-specific experiences with three country case studies which assess whether publicly provided health and education services are equitable in developing Asia, examining the extent to which these social services favor the poor as well as the policy challenges to a more equitable delivery of these services. Finally, these country studies provide evidence–based policy recommendations to improve equity in social service delivery in developing countries. Achieving social equity has long been an important policy goal. There are relatively few studies on equity. This book aims to help fill this gap with an in-depth analysis of the issues associated with equity, covering its concept, measurement, and policy practices and implications.

Successive crises including COVID-19, Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine and the climate emergency are exacerbating inequalities between and within countries and stifling progress to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement. While developed countries deployed historic stimulus packages to build back better, developing countries lacked fiscal and monetary buffers to respond. Countries with the fewest resources face challenging trade-offs between short-term rescue and long-term financing for a sustainable recovery.

Kevin Watkins analyses the manner in which the economies of East Asia have attained high economic growth rates and managed to share the prosperity widely. A caveat is included as some groups have been excluded from these benefits on ethnic grounds.

What can prosperity possibly mean in a world of environmental and social limits? The publication of Prosperity without Growth was a landmark in the sustainability debate. Tim Jackson’s piercing challenge to conventional economics openly questioned the most highly prized goal of politicians and economists alike: the continued pursuit of exponential economic growth. Its findings provoked controversy, inspired debate and led to a new wave of research building on its arguments and conclusions. This substantially revised and re-written edition updates those arguments and considerably expands upon them. Jackson demonstrates that building a ‘post-growth’ economy is a precise, definable and meaningful task. Starting from clear first principles, he sets out the dimensions of that task: the nature of enterprise; the quality of our working lives; the structure of investment; and the role of the money supply. He shows how the economy of tomorrow may be transformed in ways that protect employment, facilitate social investment, reduce inequality and deliver both ecological and financial stability. Seven years after it was first published, Prosperity without Growth is no longer a radical narrative whispered by a marginal fringe, but an essential vision of social progress in a post-crisis world. Fulfilling that vision is simply the most urgent task of our times.

For nearly two decades the U.S. economy has been plagued by two disturbing economic trends: the slowdown in the growth rates of productivity and average real wages and the increase in wage and income inequality. The federal budget is in chronic deficit. Imports have far exceeded exports for more than a decade. American competitiveness has been a source of concern for even longer. Many Americans worry that foreigners are buying up U.S. companies, that the economy is losing its manufacturing base, and that the gap between rich and poor is widening. In this book three of the nation's most noted economists look at the primary reasons for these trends and assess which of the many suggestions for change in policy—whether for increased tax incentives for investment, education reform, or accelerated research and development—are likely to work and which may not work and could even hinder economic development. The author's discuss a variety of issues connected with deindustrialization and diminished competitiveness, distinguishing between problems that would be of real concern and those that should not. They evaluate explanations for slow growth in aggregate productivity in the United States and its relation to slower growth in other industrialized countries. They discuss the performance of the various sectors of the U.S. economy and systematically examine the evidence for and against the major proposals for correcting the adverse trends in productivity and inequity. Growth With Equity clearly explains how the country can accomplish the challenge of accelerating growth and narrowing the gap that separates the rich from the poor. While recognizing that some of their recommendations may be politically painful, the authors stress the importance of adopting a purposeful, long-range policy to encourage growth, ensure equity, and reduce the government's equity.

January 1996 There is no intrinsic tradeoff between long-run aggregate economic growth and overall equity. Policies aimed at helping the poor accumulate productive assets -- especially policies to improve schooling, health, and nutrition -- when adopted in a relatively nondistorted framework, are important instruments for achieving higher growth. The stylized fact that distribution must get worse with economic growth in poor countries before it can get better turns out not to be a fact at all. Growth's effects on inequality can go either way and are contingent on several other factors. Bruno, Ravallion, and Squire found no sign in the new cross-country data they assembled that growth has any systematic impact on inequality. Possibly measurement errors confound the true relationship, but they think it more likely that the relationship between growth and distribution is not as simple as some theories have held. Since distribution does not worsen, growth reduces absolute poverty. Indeed, absolute poverty measures typically respond quite elastically to growth, and the benefits are certainly not confined to those near typical poverty lines. Of course, one cannot say that growth always benefits the poor or that none of the poor lose from pro-growth policy reform Only aggregate effects are studied. But for 17 of the 20 countries for which they assemble quite good data (from at least two surveys since the mid-1980s), the mean and the proportion of people living below $1 a day moved in opposite directions. The gains to poor people from a distribution-neutral growth process will tend to be lower, the higher the extent of initial inequality. A smaller share of total income must imply a smaller absolute gain from a given increment to total income. Compensatory direct interventions can be important, provided they are integrated into a framework of fiscal and monetary discipline. The evidence does not suggest that growth is always distribution-neutral, and it would be wrong to conclude that changes in distribution are of little consequence. The point is not that distribution is irrelevant or that it never changes, but that its changes are roughly uncorrelated with economic growth. There is no intrinsic tradeoff between long-run aggregate efficiency and overall equity. Policies aimed athelping the poor accumulate productive assets -- especially policies to improve schooling, health, and nutrition -- when adopted in a relatively nondistorted framework, are important instruments for achieving higher growth. This paper -- a product of the Office of the Vice President, Development Economics, and the Poverty and Human Resources Division and Office of the Director, Policy Research Department -- was prepared for the IMF Conference on Income Distribution and Sustainable Growth, June 1 - 2, 1995.