The incredible miracle in poor country development

Author:
Noah Smith

The amazing improvement in the quality of life of the world's poor people should be common knowledge by now. For example, you have the now-famous "elephant graph", by Branko Milanovic, showing recent income growth at various levels of the global income distribution:

This graph shows that over the last three decades or so, the global poor and middle class reaped huge gains, the rich-country middle-class stagnated, and the rich-country rich also did quite well for themselves.

You also have the poverty data from Max Roser, showing how absolute poverty has absolutely collapsed in the last couple of decades, both in percentage terms and in raw numbers of humans suffering under its lash:

The article's full-text is available here.

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