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标题：Poverty, Income Inequality, and Growth in Pakistan: A Pooled Regression Analysis
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作者：Ahmed Raza Cheema ; Maqbool H. Sial
期刊名称：The Lahore Journal of Economics
印刷版ISSN：1811-5438
电子版ISSN：1811-5446
出版年度：2012
卷号：17
期号：2
页码：137-157
出版社：Lahore School of Economics
摘要：This study estimates a set of fixed effects/random effects models to ascertain the long-run relationships between poverty, income inequality, and growth using pooled data from eight household income and expenditure surveys conducted between 1992/93 and 2007/08 in Pakistan. The results show that growth and inequality play significant roles in affecting poverty, and that the effect of the former is substantially larger than that of the latter. Furthermore, growth has a significant positive impact on inequality. The results also show that the absolute magnitude of net growth elasticity of poverty is smaller than that of gross growth elasticity of poverty, suggesting that some of the growth effect on poverty is offset by the rise in inequality. The analysis at a regional level shows that both the gross and net growth elasticity of poverty are higher in rural areas than in urban areas, whereas the inequality elasticity of poverty is higher in urban areas than in rural areas. At a policy level, we recommend that, in order to reduce poverty, the government should implement policies focusing on growth as well as adopting strategies geared toward improving income distribution
关键词：Poverty; inequality; growth; pooled data; Pakistan. ;JEL Classification: I32; O40. ;1.;Introduction ;Reducing poverty is a key objective of policymakers; and it has ;attracted increased attention since the Millennium Development Goals ;were adopted. Poverty depends on inequality and growth; but the ;relationships between poverty; income inequality; and growth are not ;simple. According to Kuznets' hypothesis (1955); inequality initially rises ;with growth; but then decreases as the benefits of growth trickle down to ;the poor. Deininger and Squire (1996); Ravallion and Chen (1997); and ;Dollar and Kraay (2002); however; argue that growth has no impact on ;inequality. Kaldor (1956); Li and Zou (1998); and Forbes (2000) show that ;*;Lecturer in Economics; Department of Economics; University of Sargodha; Pakistan. ;**;Foreign Faculty Professor; Department of Economics; University of Sargodha; Pakistan. ; var currentpos;timer; function initialize() { timer=setInterval("scrollwindow()";10);} function sc(){clearInterval(timer); }function scrollwindow() { currentpos=document.body.scrollTop; window.scroll(0;++currentpos); if (currentpos != document.body.scrollTop) sc();} document.onmousedown=scdocument.ondblclick=initializeAhmed Raza Cheema and Maqbool H. Sial ;138;inequality does lead to growth; but Alesina and Rodrick (1994) ;demonstrate that inequality affects growth adversely. ;In Pakistan; only a few studies have attempted to estimate the long-;run relationships between poverty; growth; and income distribution. Ali ;and Tahir (1999) cover the period 1963/64 to 1993/94 and Saboor (2004) ;looks only at rural Pakistan for the period 1990/91 to 2001/02. Both use ;ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions to estimate the relationships ;between the three variable in question using pooled data from the ;Household Income and Expenditure Surveys (HIES). The estimation of ;na.ve OLS using pooled data seems problematic; however; since it fails to ;account for the variations in poverty; inequality; and growth across various ;regions of Pakistan. ;A cursory examination of the data on poverty and inequality ;[Shown in Appendices 1; 2; and 3 reveals stark variations in the time-series ;estimates of poverty; Gini coefficients; and mean expenditure per adult-;equivalent across various provinces and even between rural and urban ;areas of Pakistan. In reality; these regional differences in the levels of ;poverty and other social welfare measures reflect an underlying disparity ;in natural endowments and economic opportunities across various regions ;of Pakistan. To control and account for such differences; we employ panel ;data techniques—a fixed effects model and random effects model—to ;estimate the long-run relationships between poverty; inequality; and ;growth using pooled data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics' HIES ;conducted during 1992/93 to 2007/08.;1;The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the datasets ;and methodologies employed. The results are presented in Section 3; while ;Section 4 concludes the paper. ;2.;Data and Methodology ;2.1.;Datasets ;This study uses eight household income and expenditure surveys ;for the survey years 1992/93; 1993/94; 1996/97; 1998/99; 2001/02; ;2004/05; 2005/06; and 2007/08. The sample is representative at the ;national and provincial level with a rural/urban breakup. The detail of the ;households covered during the various surveys is given in Table 1. ;1;The HIES 2007/08 is the most recent survey available.