Dynamics of Rural Growth in Bangladesh

The rural economy in Bangladesh has been
a powerful source of economic growth and has substantially
reduced poverty, especially since 2000, but the remarkable
transformation and unprecedented dynamism in rural
Bangladesh are an underexplored, underappreciated, and
largely untold story. The analysis identifies the key
changes occurring in the rural economy, the principal
drivers of rural incomes, the implications for policy, and
related actions to foster future growth, further reduce
poverty, and improve food security and nutrition. A
substantial strength of this study is its empirical
foundation, consisting of three sets of detailed data on
rural households. Two of the datasets are unique in tracking
the same set of households for more than two decades. These
data make it possible to examine how change is occurring
within and among rural households; they shed considerable
light on trends that tend to be obscured at more aggregate
levels of analysis. Nationally representative surveys and
aggregate secondary data provide complementary and
contextually rich insights into the household data.