ABSTRACT
Over the past fifteen years, development economists have become increasingly concerned about the prospects for "equitable" growth in developing countries. Western development theories of the 1950s and 1960s generally predicted that the benefits of growth would "trickle down" to the poorer strata of the population relatively quickly in the process of development. However, analysis of the available data from the 1950s and 1960s has indicated that income inequality and unemployment have often increased with increases in per capita GNP. Some data have supported the stronger conclusion that the poorest 40 to 60 percent of the population have become absolutely, as well as relatively, worse off in most developing countries, i.e., the real incomes of the poor have declined, or the percentage of the population below some "poverty line" has increased. This apparent failure of the growth strategies of the 1950s and 1960s has led to a renewed interest in the policies appropriate to the reduction of poverty, inequalities, and unemployment and to a search for cases of "equitable growth."
