This paper synthesizes the major findings from eight selected East Asian country studies (China, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) regarding the relationship between economic growth and income distributions in these economies in the last decade. It discusses the sources of their different patterns of economic growth and income distributions, the impact of particular economic policies on income distribution, as well as the policy responses to emerging situations in these countries. It is seen that in varying ways, economic growth has generated different levels of increase in average income and fall in the incidence of poverty for all the countries. However, income distribution associated with the different patterns of growth differs from one country to another, which emphasizes the need for country-specific and contextual approaches for dealing with issues of income inequality associated with market-oriented economic growth.

March 16, 2007.