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Globalization, Growth, and DistributionIn the last two decades, across a range
 of countries high growth rates have reduced poverty but have
 been accompanied by rising inequality. This paper is
 motivated by this stylized fact, and by the strong
 distributional concerns that persist among populations and
 policy makers alike, despite the poverty reduction observed
 in official statistics where growth has been sufficiently
 high. This seeming disconnects frames the questions posed in
 this paper. Why the disconnect, and what to do about it? It
 is argued that official poverty statistics may be missing
 key elements of the ground level reality of distributional
 evolution, of which rising inequality may be an indirect
 indicator. Heterogeneity of population means that there may
 be significant numbers of poor losers from technical change,
 economic reform and global integration, even when overall
 measured poverty falls. In terms of actions, attention is
 drawn to the role of safety nets as generalized compensation
 mechanisms, to address the ethical and political economy
 dimensions of such a pattern of distributional evolution.
 Addressing structural inequalities is also a long term
 answer with payoffs in terms of equitable growth. In terms
 of future analysis, diminishing returns have set in to the
 inequality-growth cross-country regressions literature.
 Further work to help policy makers should focus on: (i) new
 information to illuminate the disconnect; (ii) analysis and
 assessment of safety nets as generalized compensation
 mechanisms; and (iii) addressing specific forms of
 structural inequality related to assets, gender, and social
 groupings like caste or ethnicity.
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A Comparative Perspective on Poverty Reduction in Brazil, China and IndiaBrazil, China and India have seen
 falling poverty in their reform periods, but to varying
 degrees and for different reasons. History left China with
 favorable initial conditions for rapid poverty reduction
 through market-led economic growth; at the outset of the
 reform process there were ample distortions to remove and
 relatively low inequality in access to the opportunities so
 created, though inequality has risen markedly since. By
 concentrating such opportunities in the hands of the better
 off, prior inequalities in various dimensions handicapped
 poverty reduction in both Brazil and India. Brazil's
 recent success in complementing market-oriented reforms with
 progressive social policies has helped it achieve more rapid
 poverty reduction than India, although Brazil has been less
 successful in terms of economic growth. In the wake of its
 steep rise in inequality, China might learn from
 Brazil's success with such policies. India needs to do
 more to assure that poor people are able to participate in
 both the country's growth process and its social
 policies; here there are lessons from both China and Brazil.
 All three countries have learned how important macroeconomic
 stability is to poverty reduction.
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Turkey : Poverty and Coping after Crises, Volume 2. Background PapersTurkey experienced severe losses of life
 and infrastructure in 1999 caused by the August earthquake.
 The earthquake was followed by a period of economic and
 financial crisis, culminating in a major currency
 devaluation in February 2001. What has been the social
 impact of these crises? In order to answer that question,
 the World Bank and the Government of Japan co-financed a
 household survey during the summer of 2001, which consisted
 of surveying 4200 households on their consumption and
 income, and interviewing 120 respondents in depth for case
 studies. This study seeks to answer three main questions:
 how many are poor in Turkey in 2001; who are the poor and
 why are they poor?; and how do the poor cope with risk and
 poverty?. The major effect of the crises has been an
 increase in poverty in urban areas of Turkey from 1994 to
 2001. Extreme poverty in all of Turkey has not changed, and
 remains at low levels, but inequality is also unchanged at
 quite high levels. A relatively large share (nearly
 one-fifth) of the urban population has consumption below a
 food standard, and qualitative evidence indicates that
 poverty has worsened in rural areas as well. The report
 concludes with the following policy recommendations:1)
 Macroeconomic management to resume broad-based growth, which
 should reverse the poverty trend since the vast majority of
 the newly poor are not extremely poor 2) Counter negative
 coping strategies of the poor by providing conditional cash
 transfers 3) Expand job opportunities for the newly poor
 through micro-projects and community development 4) Improve
 targeting and coverage of the extreme poor and outreach to
 them through institutional strengthening 5) Institute
 regular poverty monitoring through household surveys and the
 development of a poverty map.