ABSTRACT
This chapter describes and defines the data used for empirical results of poverty and trade liberalization, rural–urban inequalities, other control variables and the sources of the data. African countries' engagement with economic openness and trade liberalization since the late 1980s, Africa remains the poorest continent in the world. While trade liberalization has been well established in literature as an important component of growth and poverty reduction strategies in developing countries, both theoretically and empirically, its impact on poverty is ambiguous. Economists agree that economic growth is potentially the most important channel for reducing poverty and that trade might play an important role in this process of economic growth. In general, economic growth is necessary for reducing poverty, but it needs a complementary policy to do so. The direct poverty impact of changes in prices mainly depends on whether households are net consumers or net producers of goods and services in the international market.
