Shared Prosperity: Monitoring Inclusive Growth

Shared prosperity measures the extent to which economic growth is inclusive by focusing on household consumption or income growth among the poorest population relative to the population as whole. It is the annualized growth rate in the average consumption or income per capita of the poorest 40 percent (the bottom 40) of the population in a country.  Promoting shared prosperity is one of the goals of the World Bank Group, along with eradicating extreme poverty. Because this indicator monitors the progress of the bottom 40 and how the less well-off can benefit from economic growth, it is relevant even in higher-income countries, where extreme poverty is much lower. The latest data for this goal is reported twice a year in Global Database of Shared Prosperity.^[1]

Explore the latest Shared Prosperity data

The April 2023 update of the Global Database of Shared Prosperity (GDSP) is the 11th edition of the database since its launch. This new edition revises the figures released in October 2022, and continues to use the new international poverty line of $2.15 per person per day in 2017 PPP. Indicator coverage is revised to include 78 of the world’s economies, which are roughly comparable for circa 2015-2020.

Learn more about the 11th Edition of the GDSP in this What’s New  brief.

Download the latest shared prosperity data

(available in .pdf and .xlsx).

Download historical shared prosperity data

All historical spells

_{[1]  The GDSP is updated in line with the updates to the poverty estimates. A major update to the GDSP happens around March of every year with a possibility of a smaller update in September on some years.}

Last Updated: Apr 30, 2023

The number of economies^[2] included in the GDSP depends on the availability of household surveys in the World Bank’s Global Monitoring Database (GMD) as of April 2023.^[3] Shared prosperity is harder to monitor than global poverty. Whereas one household survey is needed to compute poverty, two comparable household surveys are needed to compute shared prosperity. Moreover, these surveys must be conducted around the same years in all economies to measure shared prosperity for roughly the same period. These requirements mean shared prosperity cannot be measured in some of the most deprived economies, which often lack sufficient survey data (a more detailed discussion can be found here). Table 1 below shows how GDSP coverage varies between updates.^[4]

________

_{[2] The term country, used interchangeably with economy, does not imply political independence but refers to any territory for which authorities report separate social or economic statistics.}

_{[3] The Global Monitoring Database (GMD) is the World Bank’s repository of multitopic income and expenditure household surveys used to monitor global poverty and shared prosperity. The household survey data are typically collected by national statistical offices in each country, and then compiled, processed, and harmonized by the Data for Goals (D4G) team in the Poverty Global Practice.}

_{[4] The largest number of economies covered was in the fourth edition of the GDSP in 2017 (which was used in World Bank, 2020), with 93 economies}

Table 1. Country coverage across editions of the GDSP, by region

^{Source: World Bank compilation based on data of GDSP (Global Database of Shared Prosperity), World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023 http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/brief/global-database-of-shared-prosperity}

Note: AM=Annual meetings in October; SM=Spring meetings in April. EAP = East Asia and Pacific; ECA = Europe and Central Asia; LAC = Latin America and Caribbean; MNA = Middle East and North Africa; OHI=Other High-Income countries; SAR = South Asia; SSA = Sub-Saharan Africa.

Survey data are selected according to two criteria: (i) to match the time periods as closely as possible across all countries, while including the most recent data; and (ii) to ensure the widest possible coverage of countries, across regions and income levels. Comparability is assessed according to the database available here. Although 168 countries have an international poverty estimate in the World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP), significantly fewer have a shared prosperity estimate due to the stricter data requirements referenced above.

Overall, the GDSP now includes coverage for approximately 5.69 billion people, or 74 percent of the world’s population in 2019. However, outside of Europe and Central Asia, the total number of countries with shared prosperity data is low relative to the total countries in each region (Table 2).

Table 2. Global Database of Shared Prosperity, 11th edition, circa 2015-2020

_{Sources: 11th edition of the GDSP Global Database of Shared Prosperity); World Development Indicators (WDI); http://data.worldbank.org/products/wdi}

Note: Population data are from 2019. The list of IDA countries and economies in fragile and conflict-affected situations is from fiscal year (FY) 2022. Number of economies with poverty rate counts economies that reported poverty estimates in 2012 or later. SP = shared prosperity indicator. Averages across economies are simple averages, not population weighted.

Shared Prosperity Trends

Comparing shared prosperity across regions and over time should be made with caution. There is a wide range of periods represented in the circa 2015–20 shared prosperity indicators. For example, growth is measured from 2014-2019 for China but 2016–2021 for Brazil and Argentina. Moreover, in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) and Europe and Central (ECA) regions, countries with 2020 data are presenting shared prosperity indicators that capture the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and corresponding policy response. These countries would require their own separate analysis given the extent of the shock to incomes in 2020. The Poverty and Shared Prosperity Report 2022 (World Bank, 2022) contains a separate discussion of trends for 13 countries with data collected in 2020 to provide an estimate of the impacts of the pandemic on shared prosperity. 

So long as concerns on changing country coverage are considered, one can still use the various editions of the GDSP to study trends in shared prosperity over time. Comparing the benchmark established for the 2014 Annual Meetings (data circa 2006-2011) to the latest edition (circa 2015-2020), we observe shared prosperity generally increased in Europe and Central and the rest of the world (or Other High-Income countries, OHI). Average shared prosperity has been consistently high in the East Asia and Pacific (EAP) region across most editions of the GDSP. Meanwhile, in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), the Middle East and North Africa (MNA), and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) regions, shared prosperity has been more varied, declining starting around Spring Meeting 2018 (8th) edition of the GDSP, before rebounding slightly.  

The Team

The Global Database on Shared Prosperity was created by the Global Poverty Working Group (GPWG), an interdisciplinary technical working group established to improve the quality and frequency of poverty and inequality data, comprising members from the Poverty and Equity Global Practice and the Development Economics Vice Presidency Data Group (DECDG) and Research Group (DECRG). 

Citation and Attribution:

When using Shared Prosperity data, please cite as: Global Database of Shared Prosperity (11th edition, circa 2015-20), World Bank, Washington, DC. 2023. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/brief/global-database -of-shared-prosperity

Data Source

The Global Monitoring Database (GMD) is the World Bank’s repository of multitopic income and expenditure household surveys used to monitor global poverty and shared prosperity. The household survey data are typically collected by national statistical offices in each country, and then compiled, processed, and harmonized. The process is coordinated by the Data for Goals (D4G) team and supported by the six regional statistics teams in the Poverty and Equity Global Practice. The Global Poverty & Inequality Data Team (GPID) in the Development Economics Data Group (DECDG) also contributes historical data from before 1990 and recent survey data from the Luxemburg Income Study (LIS). Selected variables have been harmonized to the extent possible such that levels and trends in poverty and other key sociodemographic attributes can be reasonably compared across and within countries over time. The GMD’s harmonized microdata are currently used in the Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP), the World Bank’s Multidimensional Poverty Measure (MPM), the Global Database of Shared Prosperity (GDSP), and Poverty and Shared Prosperity Reports. Additional information on the latest country data can be found in Castaneda et al., 2022.

Contacts

Database and Methodology:

Data for Goals (D4G) at data4goals@worldbank.org

Media inquiries:

Paul Clare, Senior External Affairs Officer at pclare@worldbank.org