The cross-country literature on both growth and pro-poor growth has been
criticized for not giving enough guidance to policy makers. Much of the so-called pro-poor growth agenda has been focusing on aggregated income and poverty statistics,
measuring to what extent growth was reducing poverty, and analyzing whether and why
poverty was reduced in an absolute or relative sense. In the beginning of the 2000´s,
however, a new wave of literature emerged focusing on the importance of the context and ex ante analysis of constraints to future economic development.12 Several cross-country studies have shown that growth determinants are highly dependent on initial conditions
such as levels of income, poverty, and asset inequality, but also a host of other factors such as geography, demography, governance, politics, social considerations, and the set of existing policies. These differ not only between countries, but also over time within the same country.