Public Expenditures, Growth, And Poverty: Lessons from Developing Countries

Public Expenditures, Growth, and Poverty: Lessons from Developing Countries. Edited by Shenggen Fan. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Pp. 249. The introductory chapter begins by noting that "More than 1 billion people around the globe still live on less than US$1 a day as measured in purchasing power parity in 2001. Over the past 20 years, rapid economic growth in East Asia has reduced the total number of poor people from 800 million in 1981 to 270 million in 2001. In South Asia, during the same period the total number of poor people declined only marginally, from 480 million to 430 million." (p. 1). Furthermore, on both economic and moral grounds, currently practised policies and programmes aimed at poverty reduction are not sufficient to reduce human deprivation to more acceptable levels. "It is obvious, therefore, that a 'business as usual' approach is wholly inadequate. Instead, a more effective poverty alleviation strategy is urgently required in recognition of the fact that persistent poverty and malnutrition result in irreversible costs to human and economic development." (p. 1).