How much economic growth is necessary to reduce global poverty substantially?

Abstract

This article presents calculations to determine the minimum necessary economic growth to reduce global poverty to Denmark’s level of 14% from a baseline level of 85%. The data concludes that this would require a global aggregate growth of at least 410% and a five-fold increase in the global economy by 2100. This minimum growth estimate is constructed through a hypothetical scenario that allows for maximum poverty reduction with minimum growth. The result is a minimum growth scenario in which every country stops economic growth once they reach the average income of Denmark and every country richer than Denmark reduces the income of people there. The paper then explores a number of caveats, including the impact of future population growth and the need to decouple economic growth from environmental harm, and concludes that if the world will ever substantially reduce poverty, then it would be a future with more aggregate global economic growth than a 5-fold increase. – AI-generated abstract.