Immiserizing Growth: An Overview

Abstract

This chapter provides a survey of theoretical and empirical issues related to immiserizing growth (IG). It reviews historical antecedents, including the towering figures of classical political economy—Malthus, Ricardo, and Marx—who held different versions of the IG idea. A number of the causal mechanisms generating IG outcomes are then reviewed, drawing on diverse traditions of scholarship, with a focus on political economy, politics, and the policy process. Finally, the empirical literature is examined drawing on cross-country and country case information. The chapter concludes that IG is not an insignificant empirical phenomenon, which has been somewhat overlooked in light of the prevailing narrative that ‘growth is good for the poor’.