Maxim Pinkovskiy and Xavier Sala-i-Martin have estimated the world's income distribution and suggest that world poverty is disappearing faster than previously thought. From 1970 to 2006, poverty fell by 86% in South Asia, 73% in Latin America, 39% in the Middle East, and 20% in Africa. Barring a catastrophe, there will never be more than a billion people in poverty in the future history of the world.
Between 1970 and 2006, the global poverty rate has been cut by nearly three quarters. The percentage of the world population living on less than $1 a day (in
PPP-adjusted 2000 dollars) went from 26.8% in 1970 to 5.4% in 2006. Although world population has increased by about 80%, the number of people below the $1 line has shrunk by nearly 64%, from 967 million in 1970 to 350 million in 2006.
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/4508
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