Measuring the Pro-Poor Growth of Shanghai City

This paper first constructs an improved method, which bears a series of outstanding characteristics and compensates the defects contained in the present methods of its counterparts, to measure the pro-poor growth. The method is then applied to an empirical research aimed at determining whether the realization of pro-poor growth in Shanghai city has been achieved. It has been illustrated in the result of the research that the pro-poor growth was achieved in Shanghai in the dimension of income during the period from 1981 to 2005, while in the dimensions of education, health care and general welfare, the pro-poor growth has yet to be accomplished. Moreover, the redistribution of social income is the predominant factor for the realization of pro-poor growth; what comes next is the influence of distribution of social income and the factor of third importance is the growth of income.