We are pleased to introduce the World Bank’s Shared Prosperity data portal, containing a collection of data and resources documenting the progress of the World Bank’s second Twin Goal on boosting Shared Prosperity.
What is on the Shared Prosperity data portal?
The release of the 8th edition of the Global Database of Shared Prosperity (GDSP), benchmarking growth of the bottom 40 circa 2013-2018.
The 8th edition of the GDSP includes 88 out of 218 economies in the world, corresponding to 56.9% of the world’s population, and 40.4% of the world’s economies.
In the 8th edition, shared prosperity (SP) ranges from -3.75% in Zimbabwe (2011-17) to 7.74% in Lithuania (2013-18). Shared prosperity is positive[1] in all economies where it can be measured in East Asia and Pacific, and South Asia regions. Concerningly, shared prosperity is negative[2] among all economies in the Middle East & North Africa region where it can be measured.
Since the shared prosperity indicator requires two comparable data sets, data scarcity in some countries hamper consistent reporting of shared prosperity. Notably, in the 8th edition, only 8 economies are included from the Sub-Saharan Africa region, about half the number from the 7th edition (Table 1).
Table 1. Country coverage across editions of the GDSP
Notes: AM=annual meetings in October; SM=spring meetings in April. Data used must be within two years of the shared prosperity period years.
Source: World Bank compilation based on data of GDSP (Global Database of Shared Prosperity), World Bank, Washington, DC, http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/brief/global-database-of-shared-prosperity.
Data from all 8 editions of the GDSP illustrates the evolution of shared prosperity around the world
For the first time, all 8 editions of the GDSP will be released in a comparable format to allow researchers to examine the evolution of the World Bank’s second Twin goal over time. The first edition of the Global Database of Shared Prosperity was published in Spring 2014, benchmarking growth of the bottom 40% of the population from circa 2006-2011. Over time, visible changes are revealed in average shared prosperity across regions.
Shared prosperity is increasing in EAP, ECA, and the rest of the developed world. Average shared prosperity in the EAP region has been consistently the highest across most editions of the GDSP. The EAP region includes some of the countries with the highest shared prosperity in the world (China and Malaysia). However, average shared prosperity is declining in LAC, MENA, SAR, and SSA regions. These regional trends are impacted by financial crises, economic cycles, and outbreaks of conflict. More research is needed to understand these medium-term shared prosperity trends since country coverage varies across editions.
Figure 1. Average regional shared prosperity, by edition of the GDSP
Data visualizations highlighting 8 editions of the GDSP
Get inspired viewing data visualizations created using the GDSP. These visualizations provide an easy understanding of how countries rank in shared prosperity and the shared prosperity premium. Country-level historical trends of shared prosperity from all 8 editions are also available for viewing.
Figure 2: Shared Prosperity – a global map
Methodological note
If you are interested in the construction of the shared prosperity indicator and want to learn more, please refer to the data documentation note here.
Shared prosperity is the World Bank’s second Twin Goal, introduced in 2013[3]. The monitoring of this goal is through the update of the Global Database of Shared Prosperity (GDSP), which is a core data product produced by the Poverty & Equity Global Practice. For questions about the Global Database of Shared Prosperity, please contact Data for Goals (D4G) at data4goals@worldbank.org.
[1] A positive shared prosperity indicator means that the average consumption/income of the bottom 40% of the population in a country is growing.
[2] A negative shared prosperity indicator means that the average consumption/income of the bottom 40% of the population in a country is shrinking.
[3] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/05/08/shared-prosperity-goal-for-changing-world
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