Was Economic Growth in Australia Good for the Income-Poor? and for the Multidimensionally Poor?

Abstract

We investigate the pro-poorness of Australia’s strong economic growth in the first decade of the twenty-first century using anonymous and non-anonymous approaches to the measurement of pro-poor growth. The sensitivity of pro-poor growth evaluations to the definition of poverty is evaluated by comparing the results for the standard income-poverty measure with those based on a multidimensional definition of poverty. We find that Australian growth in this period can be only categorized as pro-poor according to the weakest concept of pro-poorness that does not require any bias of growth towards the poor. In addition, our results indicate that growth was clearly more pro-income poor than pro-multidimensionally poor. Counterfactual distribution analysis reveals that differences in the distribution of health between these two groups is the non-income factor that most contributes to explain this result.