 So now it's time to ask questions, to engage and remember there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers. So let me stress that I've been told that we can now turn off the mic because there will now be an automatic picking up our voices in the room. I'm sorry if I haven't picked it up in your presentation but I was wondering about actually the role that maybe inequality, the patterns of growth playing or in your conclusions because if you say that the faster growth brings about faster poverty reduction, would you assume that that is at a given level of inequality and how does this play out? And for Germano, I'm not actually sure how the number of years of education or sickness can be qualified as effort, so I don't know if you can dwell a little bit on that. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Murray Labron from the University of Cape Town. So find a quick one for you when you said that the benchmark incomes were not sensitive to the inequality measures. Maybe you can just, I presume the benchmark incomes are sensitive to the inequality measures but the net result at the end, that the measure didn't make such a big difference to the story you were telling, but I'll leave that with you. And then on the first paper, a little bit like Anders' question, I guess the puzzle is that the second half of your paper emphasizes the fact that the initial level of poverty makes a big difference and so that then pushes us but you start with the strong statement that of course poverty reduction requires growth. But obviously in the African performance in the growth elasticity of poverty, if you like, in Africa has been very disappointing relative to the world economy. So I think it's in the intersection of those two things, I'd just like to reflect on that because for me, the big stylized fact when I start thinking about growth and poverty is the fact that the returns to growth have been quite disappointing in the continent without wanting to be a denialist, that's ridiculous. But yeah, thank you. I'm closer than the front. Hi, I'm Rachel Gisselquist. I'm with UNU Wider. And so I have a question for UCN for Finn. So UC picking up on, I think it was one of your last points about this virtuous spiral, right? So I wonder, I'm wondering about how your two policy messages compare. So you've, you talk about the virtuous spiral and that the importance of addressing poverty first and then growth, right? And Finn, you're emphasizing policy trade-offs. So I'm wondering, are you agreeing with each other? Are you, are you, where are you disagreeing? What are the key disagreements? So we try to answer these questions now and then we will continue with another round. Something after, we need to mic up here then. I think I can speak out the room for the next week or so why don't we start with UC? I'm UC. Yeah. All right. So I will try to answer the questions and I also try, before I answer, I will also try to make sure that I got the questions. So the first lady from French development, you know, the question is, so as I understand you are asking about the role of inequality in the dynamic. Is that correct? Yeah. So, and then you asked about, you know, you said you begin with finding that growth has a positive impact on poverty reduction. What is a role of inequality? I'm actually, I'm grateful that you asked the question because indeed, if you go back to the literature, you know, Dollar, Cray, you know, they were talking about how on the one hand, they emphasize the role of growth has been central for poverty reduction and on the other hand, they also hinted, not hinted, they made it clear in their paper that inequality is of little relevance, but in our analysis, actually we do find that the role of inequality has been increasing over time. So if you split the four decades that we studied into sub periods, you do see that the role of inequality has been increasing over time when we are talking about the link from growth to poverty reduction. So it has been having a bigger impact and a growing impact, you know, compared to the effectiveness of growth in reducing poverty. That's the role of inequality. It's becoming more important as to what I under, as to how I understand it. Now the second question or the comment, yeah, I mean, I understand you invite me or you suggest we should consider more about the growth elasticity and how it's being underperforming in sub-Saharan Africa. Did I get it right? Yeah, that surprises me as well, because, you know, and I recently actually looked at the most recent poverty data. And I actually find, you know, that if you split into decades, you see that the elasticity of growth in reducing poverty was at minus three in the 1990s and 2000s. But after 2010 and most recent one decade, growth elasticity has been declining to minus 2.4, which is before, you know, they had that level back in the 1980s. So you see the effectiveness of growth increased in the 1990s and 2000s and declined. That is actually interesting, but I'm still exploring. And also how they vary by developing regions, because what I told is just, you know, about the entire developing world. And also the inequality data that I used is from the World Bank. I haven't explored the wheat data. Maybe we will have some more nuanced stories. And also I looked at the effectiveness of changing inequality in reducing poverty. It's the opposite story. It's not important back in the 1980s, but it's becoming more and more important as we move more into the most recent decades. Yeah, I agree. I think it's fascinating. Yeah, thank you. The third one from Rachel. I will give it to Professor Thorn. It's a hard one. Yes, when I was listening to his research presentation, I also wonder, you know, but I mean, in our case, I just want to make sure, because this is a message that is really close to the heart of Professor Thornbacks. I want to just convey. So he is fed up with how we are placing a central role on growth. So the paper is really to try to find some opposite evidence to highlight, not to say growth is no longer important, but to say that poverty reduction in the first place might have some impact on promoting growth, which would in turn. But I mean, the causal identification is really tough. I wasn't able to do it. I have to confess with my cross-sectional data and the techniques that I currently have. And I really ask people to give me advice in that regard, as for whether I agree and disagree with Professor Tarp. I'll give you the tough question. So, actually, your question was whether years of schooling is also effort. Can you please, I did not get it very well. So the question is years of schooling in relation to their effect on income or inequality. Are you asking whether they belong in effort or yes, actually, they do. Although in our paper, actually, I mean, this is an individual's level of... I now can see your point. OK. So years of schooling obtained long time ago, that is like circumstance, because there's nothing we can do about those years now. Years of schooling achieved long time ago. So those are like circumstances. Years of schooling now, those are like effort. And actually, there's something we can do. A person can change their level of schooling now. I'm going to school now and working. OK, so I can actually change my years of schooling. So that is effort. But my years of schooling undertaken say 20 years ago, like over a chairman, that one, there's nothing we can do about it. So I think it depends on how it's defined. It depends on how it's defined. OK, for sickness. OK. Sickness, sickness is actually a pure effort. OK. I'm also thinking as I answer this question. So if this is sickness from COVID, that is circumstance. But if that is sickness from COVID, because I've not worn a mask, that is effort. OK. So actually, we haven't really separated those. We haven't thought very carefully on how to think of effort, sorry, of sickness as an exogenous variable, a circumstance over which an individual has no control. And also, a variable that an individual has control over. OK, so I've also understood that. Yes, I think that's how I answer it more or less the same way. And also to elaborate that, you see sickness as a negative effect on the income. But then there are things related to sickness that also, instead of reducing income, they actually increase income. OK, when you are sick, your income actually increases. How is that? OK, it has to do with the cultural norms in villages that we don't measure or see. Like when people get sick, they actually get transferred from other households. That is how that is possible. OK, thank you very much. I mean, thanks very much. I mean, I apologize if I were too rushed in terms of explaining. I mean, once you have chosen your inequality measure, be that a genie, an absolute genie, whatever, I mean, among the sort of battery we have, then they do, of course, identify different benchmarks. However, when you have the measure, then you have one unique benchmark. And that's the beauty of it, because then you can't go back and forth and then discuss. I mean, that's where the domestic benchmark lies. And it's in that sense, it's to be interpreted. If you take a look at the slides, it will have been specified correctly. If I was too rushed, I apologize. When it comes to the virtual spiral, the question from Rachel, I mean, I want to make very clear that we have not in this paper, we have not considered, so what are the implications then from, for example, inequality back on growth, from growth in different parts of the distribution? We have not considered what are the impacts of poverty remaining unchanged on growth, et cetera, et cetera. We've tried to identify a number of trade-offs which we think should be discussed in a transparent way and then linked to the other literatures that might exist. And that's why, actually, I try to provoke and jump into a little bit into political economy or even politics by talking about this potential trade-off. If you focus on those who are between, for example, the 50s and the 75th, that if you don't focus on those, you might have other consequences. So we have in many ways, we have not looked at the consequences. I have a great sympathy for us addressing or thinking a lot about the sort of strong focus on growth and growth only because I don't think that growth only is the response that we should come with in development economics. We do need to, at the same time, certainly when you're looking at the poor readings of the world, you are not going to have development without growth. So it's in that context that we are thinking about these and making these trade-offs correct. So in that sense, I mean, I guess that you can sort of say what we are trying to focus on is growth and support for whom, and that in many ways kind of corresponds with what Eric and UCR are sort of talking about. I'm refraining a little bit from trying to suggest any causal relationships because unfortunately our literature, for example, on inequality impact on growth. I mean, you can get practically any result you want if you look to the literature and there is actually a survey paper. We've done under this project with Enes and you, Rachel, which kind of brings out that the literature is not very clear on that point. But I do believe that there are some clear messages. But I personally hesitate to sort of be very strong on the causality side because it could be very country-specific and then it's very tricky to bring that out in cross sections. Okay, there were other questions. I at least saw one other hand. So now we will turn it back to you. But you really have to be quite concise if you want to have a reply. And then the organizers has requested that before you all run away, we should convene up here and get a so-called group photo. So if you don't mind instead of running away, come up here and gather at the end of it when I have said this was it. So there was a question up here, I believe. Yeah, up here. Just follow up question. Yeah. You can choose not to answer this. It was just a clarification I needed in response to her question on sickness being a circumstance. The example that you gave that if someone gets COVID if you're not wearing a mask, that's your effort. And if you get COVID without, even though you were wearing a mask, that's a circumstance if you fall sick with COVID. So my understanding, we can talk about this later if not now, my understanding of circumstances are that it's defined on the basis of what you're born into, right? So your family background, your identity, your caste background and so forth. So I'm not sure why sickness, it could be that you're born into a poorer socioeconomic, a family with poorer socioeconomic background, which is why you are more prone to fall sick and I can draw some far-fetched link there. But otherwise, I'm not sure how to think about it. Thank you. Other questions of the people who want to engage? So we have one here in the front. Any one that's close to where the mic is? I'm just saying that before the mic comes on, stop. Yeah, exactly. So we take you and then I'm in the front here and then that would be it. Thank you. I kind of missed the last part of the policy messages. So I'm just a little bit of clarification actually for the lady who presented on growth and inequality. Is there any sort of decomposition of this growth process because growth is such a broad term? Is it labor-led growth? Is it capital-intensive growth? Is it growth that generates employment? Because all of that would have a very definite impact on poverty reduction, right? So how can one break down growth so that we know what it means? Because just GDP growing, how does that translate into? So it's more of a comment for UC. So you were talking about these two pathways, right? So you can either reduce, you know, you can go for growth and that will reduce poverty and inequality. Or you focus on poverty reduction, inequality reduction, and that can also lead to, you know, growth. So has there been any, you know, I was just thinking in terms of what can we do and how can we argue of one channel versus the other? So one possible thing is to see how many years, right? So you do growth, how many years will it take to reduce poverty by X percent? And then do the same analysis for if I had to reduce poverty by this X percent, how many years will it take to come to that level of growth that I started with, right? So I was just thinking that this could actually be a good comparison and the right metric to compare, you know, which method is better? And another one is for German, right? You were showing some results about equalizing, right? And of course, equalizing assets reduces inequality, right? But the question is, you equalize it at one point, it reduces inequality. But what happens in the subsequent years, right? Is it sustained? Will it, you know, dissipate? Those are very important questions from a policy perspective, right? So maybe, you know, just bringing that to the forum. Thank you. Okay, so you see first in German and I have a couple of recruiting remarks. Okay, to your question, yeah, it's a great one. I mean, I want to clarify. So in this research, what we mean by growth is really just a growth in main income. It's in no way we have data. I mean, not in no way. There are data, but we haven't explored in this paper. You know, what kind of growth? You are exactly right. Growth in what? Growth of what kind? How do you decompose so that you can more, you know, in a more nuanced manner to identify the impact? I really do not know, but I think it's a wonderful insight that I have not thought about before. Yeah, thank you. And thank you so much for the comments. Indeed, you know, growth for how long, poverty reduction by how much, you know, if we can further explore and fine tune the research. Yeah, but I mean, yeah. All the time my concern is really the causality link. You know, the claim is really just too bold. So if anyone has econometric techniques and insights to teach me, please. And that's all I have to say. A little bit on the Rachel, I want to, you know, just because I suddenly gave it a quick thought. I understand Professor Tarp is talking about how sometimes reducing inequality might mean that you have to sort of ignore the very poorest at the bottom. And then so that's your question. Do you guys agree? So I think, you know, because I do find changing inequality if we improve and reduce inequality, ultimately it would have a positive impact on reducing poverty. So we might still end of the day, agree with each other, I think, yeah. Thank you very much. How do we define circumstances or circumstance? So one definition is what we inherit, which you cannot change. And so the issue there is something that an individual cannot change. Now, sickness, due to a random strike, striking by, say, a virus, something that happened to us randomly. One person is struck by lightning, the other one is saved, for example. We cannot change that. That also actually falls under definition of circumstance. Something that an individual has very little control over. So that is, I was thinking something along those lines. Although in the literature, which actually have not much touch, still working on it, falls under definition of inheritance. Also in the plenary, okay, that is how the circumstance was defined. Now, maybe I can ask this issue about what were we equalizing. So we equalize probability of sickness. So everyone has the same probability of sickness. And then we look to see what that does to incomes. And then to inequality, okay. Now, the one thing, okay. Whether that is sustainable, that equalization is sustainable in the future, that's actually an important issue that we don't consider. But the other issue, which we also don't consider, is the mechanisms through which this equalization works. And actually that is why even with equalization, you might find that incomes might increase or fall. And inequalities also may move in any direction. Because the mechanisms are not clear. At least in the models that we used. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. My final comment will be that it's very clear that it's incredibly important to keep in mind that the growth poverty elasticity in the Sub-Saharan African context has been disappointingly low. This was very much the driving element behind both the book that I referred to on growth and poverty in Africa together, edited together with Channing-Aunt and Andy McKay where there are contributors here. What we tried in that volume, which by the way is freely downloadable, we actually try to categorize countries where we try to say in a broad sort of way, we try to categorize countries into these different areas where we could see where is it that the growth poverty elasticity has been particularly low? Where is it that it has just sort of been not particularly good? Where is it that it has been quite good? And where is it that we just have a very hard time to say what has happened? So if you wish to have at least one way of thinking about 16-country case studies, then I do suggest that at least you take a look at that volume and sort of a one-liner thing. Cases where agriculture has been ignored or at least not gotten the attention that all insights from development economics would suggest it should have, they will perform poorly in terms of the growth poverty elasticity. That stands out as one kind of quite clear insight and that to some extent does relate back to the concerns about the GPIR ARC program and in that sense you can say that there are links between the different elements that we have been discussing today. Thank you very much to all for participating. Thank you for great presentations and thank you very much for great questions. And may I ask you to join up for the group photo? Remember tall people in the back, not so tall in the front and nobody on the table, please, if you stand up there, it will fall apart. I can see that from empirical observation. Thank you and enjoy your lunch.