After All, What is Inclusive Growth?

Abstract

The concept of inclusive growth was quickly integrated into the development literature and policymaking, virtually becoming sine qua non of any discussion about improving living conditions in the developing world. This has happened despite the lack of a consensus on what inclusive growth is—with the term’s widespread usage based on the shared intuition that it refers to generating life improvements without discrimination, but involving diverse conceptualisations. Such diversity indicates that the debate remains fairly exploratory, still far from a convergent path potentially leading to a clear and concise consensual definition. Yet, whereas inclusive growth “remains an intuitively straightforward and yet elusive concept” (Ranieri and Ramos, 2013), it is possible to discern a few core features that help to envision how to move forward in specifying the meaning of the concept of inclusive growth. (…)