The objective of this paper is to assemble on a systematic basis the available data on Asian countries and then analyse the relationship between growth and poverty on a long-term basis. Section 2 presents the trends in growth, income inequality and poverty incidence for different countries and different periods. These trends reveal the substantial variation in the relationship between growth and poverty, which is then explained on the basis of changes in the level of inequality. Section 3 studies the role of different potential macroeconomic determinants of poverty in the Asian context on the basis of simple statistical techniques. Section 4 analyses the impact of different types of policies on the proximate determinants of poverty and highlights how different Asian countries have operated within the policy trade-offs with respect to poverty. Finally, Section 5 provides some concluding observations.
