Trade and Development Report 2012

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development has just published the TDR 2012, on growth and inequality. Not surprisingly the TDR says that "rising inequality is [not] a necessary condition for sound economic growth." The table below shows the regional evolution of inequality since the 1980s.

As the report shows: "Empirical evidence shows that increasing income inequality has been a feature in the world economy since the early 1980s. However, in the 2000s in Latin America and in parts of Africa and South East-Asia income inequality fell in a context of improved external conditions. The evidence suggests that the relationship between growth and inequality is complex and can be altered by proactive economic and social policies."