What surprises me is that researchers have looked at the relationship between growth and poverty reduction in detail for the past several decades. With such a voluminous body of literature, one would expect that the debate would have been settled. However, development professionals remain as deeply polarized on the issue as ever. What are the key questions here? Let us start with something on which there is no disagreement. Does growth lead to poverty reduction? The answer is an unqualified yes. This relationship has been consistently found across countries, and across time. In fact, sustained poverty reduction cannot take place without robust economic growth. Then where is the confusion? The debate is whether governments should primarily focus on growth, which will take care of poverty on its own, or whether they should also focus on making growth more inclusive by strengthening basic public services. China’s GDP per capita grew at a healthy rate of 8.7% per annum...

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