Who Matters at the World Bank? Bureaucrats, Policy Change, and Public Sector Governance

Abstract

chapter 9, the most complete in this part, he addresses the issue of poverty in rich countries. He offers a captivating discussion on the research on poverty measurement in countries under communism and raises awareness on the recent increase in poverty in Anglo-Saxon countries and Ireland. It is here that he offers a global poverty count with the proposed “societal poverty line”. The book editors invited two leading scholars to each write an afterword, addressing two relations Tony saw as fundamental. François Bourguignon offers a succinct yet complete account of the link between growth, inequality and poverty. He explains the decomposition of changes in (absolute) poverty into a growth-effect and a redistribution-effect; he explains the concept of poverty elasticity to growth, and he discusses the channels by which growth can affect inequality and vice versa. In turn, Nicholas Stern addresses the link between poverty and climate change. He makes a strong case for rapidly reducing emissions as the prospects of unmanaged climate change are truly dangerous. Stern emphasises that the poor are not only the first hit and least prepared to cope with natural disasters, but also the most vulnerable to more gradual environmental deterioration, such as lack of water and land degradation over time. On a positive note, Stern emphasises that actions to reduce emissions and actions to reduce poverty complement each other, and that many countries have managed to decouple GDP growth from GHG emissions thanks to powerful technological changes. Importantly, he echoes Tony in emphasising the need for a “just transition” to this new type of sustainable growth. The third part of the book consists of 60 brief national poverty country reports, which contain information on monetary poverty estimates over time (with different poverty lines), as well as OPHI’s MPI estimates. The reports, started by Tony, were completed by the editors and contain all the definitions of the reported measures. In sum, this is a relevant book for many. I am sure that Tony would be very pleased to see graduate students, young scholars, and the wider academic community continuing the research lines left in this book. That is the best tribute we can offer.