Assessing growth, inequality, and poverty in the long-run : the case of Spain

Abstract

Growth and inequality over the long-run are assessed and their impact on poverty calibrated on the basis of López and Servén (2005) recent empirical research. Spain's per capita income multiplied by 15 between 1850 and 2000, while private consumption per person did it by 12, but did such a growth have an impact on absolute poverty reduction? The paper concludes that long-run growth, to a larger extent, together with a mild decline in inequality, led to a substantial reduction in absolute poverty during the last one and a half centuries. In a comparative framework, Spain shadowed Latin American poverty until the 1960s when she initiated a sustained process of convergence to Western European levels.