Overall the growth effect dominates. However, this is not true in all cases or for all groups of countries. Inequality has been more important in reducing poverty than growth in a quarter of the case studies cited in White and Anderson (2001). The dominance of growth overall may also be partly due to the growth focus of policies over the last 20 years and the weight given to cross-country studies looking at average effects across countries (the lack of time-series analysis has largely been due to insufficient data over time). Arguably there is unused potential for reducing poverty in implementing distribution policies.