The roundtable, “Is a growing middle class good for the poor? : Social Policy in a Time of Globalization” takes place on July 24, 2017.

The discussion focuses on the role of the middle class and social spending on the extreme poor covering a range of early and late-industrializing countries between 1870 and the present.  Despite much analysis of the rise of the middle class, little is known about the effects of an expanding middle class on the poorest in society. A new paper by the Brookings Institution finds that poverty reduction occurs alongside a growing middle class mediated in part through greater spending on health, education, and welfare, but that the effect of such social spending on poverty diminishes as the middle class expands.

Speaker: Dr. Raj M. Desai, Visiting Fellow, Global Economy and Development program, Brookings Institution and Associate Professor, International Development, Georgetown University

Moderated by: Dr. Shamika Ravi, Senior Fellow, Brookings India