1. Introduction
Despite the fast growth of some developing countries during the last 10 years, poverty is still a very serious problem in many areas of the world. The latest calculation of the number of poor around the world indicates that in 2005 there were 1,376.7 million people living below the new estimates of the poverty line, defined as $1.25 per day using the 2005 PPP1 (Chen and Ravallion 2008). Figure 1 shows the evolution of the proportion of people living in developing countries below this poverty line. It can be seen that the proportion has dropped from around 50% in 1981 (1,896.2 millions) to 25% in 2005. However, most of this reduction in poverty is concentrated in a particular country: China. Eliminating China the reduction in the proportion has been smaller, going from 40% in 1981 to 29% in 2005. In fact the number of poor has increased between 1981 and 2005 if we do not count China (from 1,000 million poor to 1,120 million).
See full Article, in pdf format: http://www.crei.cat/files/filesOpuscle/37/120720114556_ENG_31_ANG.pdf
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