The complementarities of poverty reduction, equity, and growth

In a celebrated psychology test, an audience is shown a short film of a basketball game and asked to count the number of passes (Simons and Chabris 1999). Typically, around 90 per cent of the audience give the correct answer but completely fail to notice that a large gorilla walks slowly through the players: attention to detail has an opportunity cost. Perhaps something like this has happened in the development discourse on poverty.