Croissance, inégalité et pauvreté dans les années quatre-vingt-dix au Burkina Faso et au sénégal

Abstract

In the 90's, Sub-Saharan Africa implemented economic reforms to increase growth. Paradoxically, in some countries, GDP growth came with increases in poverty incidence, which has stimulating the debate on the links between these two phenomena. This study focuses on the decomposition of poverty variations in two components: growth and inequality components based on Kakwani (1993). The static method was applied in two countries of West Africa: Senegal and Burkina Faso. Furthermore, we analyse the evolution of poverty and its two components using the Datt and Ravallion (1992) and Kakwani (1997) methods for the both countries. The static decomposition shows that for the two countries, growth component is favourable to poverty reduction. A contrario, the inequality component has an adverse effect on poverty, outweighs growth effect. The income redistribution reduces poverty in Burkina Faso but increases poverty in Senegal. The economic policies should encourage high growth but also aim to reduce the inequality, especially for the Senegal if they are to be efficient in terms of poverty reduction goals. We also show that the decomposition results are sensitive to the choice of price deflators' that are used on welfare measures and also to Lorenz curve assessment (parametrical or empirical). Finally, the results are also sensitive to the decomposition approach used in the exercise.