Pathways out of poverty: private firms and economic mobility in developing countries

Forty years ago in a small village in north India, an agricultural laborer had to work a whole day to earn enough to buy 5pound of what. Today, there are many more mouths to feed in his village, yet he earns five times as much. In Korea between 1962 and 2000, per capita income rose from $87 to $9,678. In countries as diverse as Venezuela, South Africa, Indonesia, and Spain in the 1990s, during a period of intensifying globalization and vast economic transformation, families that started out poor experienced the most favorable gains in income. Much has been written about poverty, but facts like these speak for themselves. They emerge from the pages of this book, which shows the power of private enterprise to lift people out of poverty. This volume combines theory, hard economic analysis, and case studies. It presents much new empirical evidence and zeroes in on the role of private firms, large and small, in reducing poverty-a topic largely neglected in the economics literature.

https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/334501468767080219/pathways-out-of-poverty-private-firms-and-economic-mobility-in-developing-countries