ABSTRACT
The United States Agency for International Development, the World Bank, and other donors have focused much of their efforts on development strategies that would achieve a distributional objective, that is, assist the poorest members of society in developing countries. The developing world overall has experienced greater changes than in their entire history. Social and economic wellbeing has increased, decolonization has occurred, and the number of independent nation-states has increased dramatically. In terms of economic growth, progress was spectacular and unprecedented. Economic growth means expanding employment opportunities. Unemployment means no wage income and hence means poverty in the developing nation. Consequently, to the extent that economic growth expands employment, it reduces poverty. The experience of Korea attests to how significant tailored growth can be in absorbing large increments in the labor force. There are few developing countries that have conducted comparable studies on the distribution of income and/or assets at different points in time.
