Title: The growth, inequality and poverty triangle: new evidence from a panel of SAARC countries

Authors: Khalid Zaman; Iqtidar Ali Shah; Muhammad Mushtaq Khan; Mehboob Ahmad

Addresses: Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Abbottabad Campus, Pakistan ' Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Abbottabad Campus, Pakistan ' Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Abbottabad Campus, Pakistan ' FUIEMS, Foundation University, New Lalazar, Rawalpindi Cantt, Pakistan

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of growth and income inequality on poverty for a panel of five selected South Asian Association For Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries; namely, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka; over the period of 1990-2008. Using Pedroni's (2004) test for panel cointegration, it was found that there is a long-run relationship between poverty, growth and income inequality. The estimated long-run elasticities indicates that increase in economic growth and income inequality contributes to a fall and rise in poverty, respectively. It was also found that the impact of income inequality in increasing poverty is comparatively greater than that of economic growth in reducing poverty in SAARC countries.

Keywords: poverty; economic growth; income inequality; panel cointegration; SAARC; South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation; Sri Lanka; India; Nepal; Pakistan; Bangladesh; Peter Pedroni; panel tests; long-run relationships; long-run elasticities; economics; business research.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEBR.2012.048774

International Journal of Economics and Business Research, 2012 Vol.4 No.5, pp.485 - 500

Published online: 25 Nov 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article