Poverty convergence clubs
研究100个新兴和发展中国家四十年贫困数据，发现贫困率呈俱乐部趋同而非绝对趋同，高贫困俱乐部陷入贫困陷阱，收入增长比不平等更能决定俱乐部归属。
Abstract Global eradication of extreme poverty requires absolute convergence of poverty rates worldwide towards zero. Empirical analysis of poverty data for 100 emerging and developing countries over four decades reveals that such a goal is likely to remain elusive. Rather than absolute convergence, we find club convergence: countries' long‐run poverty rates cluster into several distinct clubs, whose number depends on the specific poverty dimension considered. Only the lowest‐poverty club exhibits poverty rates approaching zero by the end of the sample. In contrast, the highest‐poverty club, which accounts for nearly half the world's poor, evokes a poverty trap: its average poverty barely budged over the entire period examined. Overall, income—its initial level and, especially, its growth rate—matters more than inequality for shaping countries' club membership, particularly for the highest‐poverty club. Nevertheless, inequality plays a substantive role for membership in the intermediate‐poverty clubs, which achieved the greatest poverty reduction.