Despite a great deal of progress, our world is very
unequal. And according to some indicators, it is becoming
increasingly so. Recent research shows that 62 billionaires
own the same wealth as the bottom half of the population
(Oxfam, 2016). Over the past three decades, 8 out of 10
people have been living in countries where the incomes
of the bottom 40% grew less than the average (Hoy
and Samman, 2015); economic inequality in developed
countries is rising (Piketty, 2014); and mean consumption
of the poorest globally has remained largely unchanged
(Ravallion, 2015). In this context, the relationship between
growth, inequality and poverty reduction, long the subject
of scholarly interest, is commanding renewed attention.
A particular focus of attention is on how inequality
evolves in relation to growth. This study investigates
inequality in low-income countries (LICS) and those
escaping the LIC category, and seeks to identify policies
that may reduce it. Our mixed-methods approach
combines and synthesises findings from cross-country
descriptive analysis, the in-depth quantitative analysis of
distributional patterns of income growth and education
for five countries, and analysis of policy drivers facilitating
inclusive growth in two countries.