A booming economy may not help the poor

A myth that many would like to believe is that economic booms help everyone, including the poor. There is no doubt that incredible growth in developing economies such as India and China over the past decade is helping many people. But what about the poor?
Nobel laureate in Economics Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze have examined this question for the case of India.
There is an illuminating Oxfam blog post summarising their findings. What is particularly disturbing is that in the last 20 years that India's ranking decreased relative to neighbouring South Asian countries (including Bangladesh and Nepal) with regard basic measures such as life expectancy, infant mortality rate, and mean years of schooling.

I learnt about this tonight at an excellent dinner organised by TEAR.