Rise Demise of Ucurve Hypothesis

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Kuznets's Inverted U-Curve Hypothesis: The Rise, Demise, and Continued Relevance of aSocioeconomic LawAuthor(s): Timothy Patrick MoranReviewed work(s):Source: Sociological Forum, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Jun., 2005), pp. 209-244Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4540893 .

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SociologicalForum,Vol.20,No.2,June2005(©2005)DOI:10.1007/s11206-005-4098-y

Kuznets'sInvertedU-CurveHypothesis:The Rise,Demise, and ContinuedRelevanceof a Socioeconomic Law

Timothy Patrick Moran1

This paper provides a historical analysis of the changing significance ofthe most influential statement ever made on inequality and development-Simon Kuznets's "inverted U-curve hypothesis." The shifting interpretationsand appropriations of the hypothesis over time-from its status as a spec-

ulative supposition in 1955, to its rise and fall as a reified socioeconomiclaw, to its contested standing in the social sciences today-demonstrate how

Kuznets's arguments,originally advanced under more limited conditions, be-

came transformed into overarching theoretical, empirical, and political con-structions. This history suggests that even empirically grounded and testable

social science models are contingent on the broader social and political con-

texts in which they areproduced and negotiated.

KEY WORDS:Kuznets'sU-curve; ncome inequality;development;comparative heory;socialscientificknowledge.

Simon Kuznets's "inverted U-curve hypothesis" is one of the most en-

during and remarkable arguments in the history of the social sciences. First

made public in his 1954 Presidential Address to the American Economic

Association, the hypothesis, simply stated, is that inequalities first rise with

the onset of economic growth, eventually level off over time, then begin to

fall in advanced stages of development-thus the growth-equity relation-

ship is characterized by a trajectory in the shape of an inverted U. At the

time,Kuznets could not

possibly predictthat this

patternhe half detected

and half intuited of rising then falling inequalities would become one of the

IDepartmentof Sociology,State Universityof New York - Stony Brook, Stony Brook,New York11794-4356;-mail: [email protected].

209

0884-8971/05/0600-0209/0 © 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.



210 Moran

most significant ndconsequentialpropositionsn developmentacademics

andpolicy.In the 30 yearsfollowingits 1955publication, he inverted U-

curve was transformedacrossthe social sciences from a speculative hy-

pothesisto an inevitable and unavoidablesocioeconomic "law" hatpro-vided both scholarsandpolicymakerswith an articulatedworldviewof the

nature of growthandinequality.Kuznets'shypothesisshifted the framingof incomeinequalityas a socialproblemto the examinationof size distri-

butions,spurred he first worldwideefforts to collect suchdata,createda

prolificprogramof research,and helped establishworldeconomicpolicyat a time when policymattered.Characterizinghe prevailingview at the

heightof the U-curve'sascendancy,Srinivasan1977:15) alledthe hypoth-esis "somesort of 'iron aw' of

development."Nownearly50years ater,thetheoreticalandempirical tandingof the

hypothesis s stillambiguous, ontroversial, nd relevant.According o the

Social Science CitationIndex, in the 5 years prior to 2000, nearly 500 articles

from a wide cross-sectionof socialscienceinquiryreferenced he U-curve

article.Withvariousamountsof fervor,manyscholarsnow aim to refutethe

hypothesis,while otherscontinueto arguein its favor. Nielsen (1994:654),for example,concludesthat "despitesome isolatedskepticism... the ex-istence of this curve has been well documentedfor developingsocieties

by laterresearch."Dovring (1991:101)underthe heading"Is the U-CurveInevitable?"states that "theempiricalmaterialdoes, on the whole, sup-port Kuznets'hypothesis. .. [It]has withstoodthe test of time aswell asthatof ongoingresearch."Other scholarswriting n the last decade still re-fer to the U-curveas "anaturaland unavoidable growth-equity)conflict"

(FeiandRanis,1997:324), Kuznets'saw" Sundrum, 990:78), rjust plain"conventionalwisdom" Lantican tal., 1996:243).

In thisarticle, analyze hehistoryof the theoreticalandempirical on-

ceptualizationof the world known as "Kuznets's nvertedU-curve,"with

the aim of accomplishingwo goals.The study'sprimaryaimis to providetime andplacecontextto theshiftingapplications nd nterpretationsf the

U-curvehistorically.Understanding ow the U-curve(andbyextension n-

equality tself) fit within argeracademicandpolicycontexts,andhow this

fit changedthrough ime,will help us to understandbothpastevaluationsof the U-curve as well as the currentambiguities urrounding set of ar-

gumentscentralto manyareas of current ociological nquiry.Second,the

analysishas important mplications or a broaderset of theoretical ssues

concerningthe nature of social scientificpracticeand its location within

largersociopolitical ontexts.In thissense,the storyof the U-curve-a the-ory that triumphedn certain timesand placesandfailedin others,yet isstillhotlycontestedhalf a centuryafter tspublication-is relevant o mod-els of "progress"n social scientificknowledge (as explored,for example,



TheInvertedU-CurveHypothesis 211

byRule, 1997 andHamilton,1991)and of change n the research ields that

produce t (Crane,1972;Latour,1987;Yonay,1998).The intellectualhistoryof the U-curvehypothesiscan be partitioned

into threeperiods.Aftera review of Kuznets'soriginalcontribution, ana-

lyzethefirstperiod, rom 1955 hrough he 1970s,when theU-curvebecame

whatsociologistsof scientificknowledgecall a "blackbox"-an unproblem-atic andlargelyundisputed act that servedas a "foundation"or the new

fieldof developmenteconomics Fuchs,1992).2 n the secondperiod-fromthe 1980sinto the early 1990s-the unanimityregarding he U-curvebe-

camewidely challenged, eadingto a longdecadeof contradictory indingsandambiguous onclusions:he openingof the black box.This shiftin the

interpretation f the U-curve s explainedbythe broadercounterrevolutionthat dismantleddevelopmentalismn theoryand practice,and reinvented

the academicand policy climatesin whichinequalitywas interpreted.As

opposedto a Kuhnian(Kuhn, 1962) processof a gradualaccumulation f

problematicanomalies, he storyof the U-curve,it is argued,supports he

constructivist chool'sclaim that "facts do not speakfor themselves"but

are producedand interpretedwithinsociopoliticalcontexts (Fuchs,1992;Latour andWoolgar,1986;Rule, 1997;Yonay, 1998).The thirdperiod-fromthe mid 1990sto today-is characterized y continuedcontroversies

regardingheU-curvehypothesisresulting romtheintellectualpersistenceof old black boxes and differentconceptualizations f what the U-curve

meansas a theoretical,analytical,and/orpoliticalstatement.I concludeby

summarizinghese different"U-curves," ndexamining he implications f

thishistoriographyorfutureworkas well as analyzing he productionand

interpretation f social-scientific nowledge.

THE INVERTED U-CURVE AND SIMON

KUZNETS'S HYPOTHESIS

Kuznets'scentralpurposewas to establish he characterandcauses of

seculartrendsin the size distributionof income,and specifically o ques-tion whetherincomeinequality ncreases or decreasesduringthe processof economicgrowth.His concludinghypothesiswas derivedusinga com-

binationof sparseempiricaldata, simplisticmathematicalextrapolation,

2There s agreat

deal of debatetodaysurrounding amingandclassificationssues nthesoci-

ologyof science ield.I usethephrase"sociology f scientificknowledge"o refer o the workof the constructivistcholarswhoresearch he internalworkingsand contentsof science, he"internal ynamics f science n themaking" Fuchs,1992:3).Thisapproachscognitivelydif-ferentiatedbyitspractitionersrom both"classical"ociologyof knowledge,and Mertonian

sociologyof scienceperspectives.



212 Moran

and pure theoreticalspeculation.Kuznetsbegan by examiningwhat ten-tativeempiricalevidencewas availableat the time.3Using historicaldataon the size distributionof income within the United States, England,

and Germany,Kuznets found that inequalitywas characterizedby long-term stability,before beginningto decline startingat least around1920

(and probablysince the periodbefore World War I). This trend was ac-

companied by significant ncreases in real income per capita. Thus, he

concludedthat at advancedstages of economicdevelopment,inequalityfirst leveled off then began to decline as these economies continued to

expand.Kuznets was somewhatsurprisedby these findings, noting that "a

long-termconstancy, et alone reduction,of inequality... is a puzzle" (7).More specifically,he wondered how two developmental processes thateconomistshadlong assumedto be fundamentallynegalitarian-the con-

centrationof savingsat the top of the incomedistribution, ndthe simulta-

neous intersectoral hift fromagriculturalo industry-could resultin con-

verging ncomes.Aftersummarizinghe prevailing hinkingon the former,Kuznetsdelved moreanalyticallynto the latterpartof thepuzzle.Througha simplemathematical xercise conductedon a stylized,dual-sectorecon-

omy(one splitintoagricultural/ruralnd industrial/urbanectors),Kuznets

suggestedthat the narrowingof inequalityobservedin these three devel-opedcountrieswasactually"relatively ecent andprobablydidnotcharac-terize the earlierstagesof theirgrowth" 18).

Since, according o Kuznets,the intrasectoraldistributionof incomeis necessarilywider in the urban sector than in the ruralsector,a majorshift in populationfrom a sector with low inequalityto one with greaterinequality ncreasesthe weightof the unequalsector,thusraisingoverall

inequality.Perhapsmore significantly, owever,this patternholds even if

the assumptionof wider nequalityn the urbansectoris relaxed.If income

levelsbetweenurbanandruralsectorswiden(due to greaterproductivitygainsin the former),then overallinequalitywill againhave to rise, evenif intrasectoralnequalitiesare assumed o be the same. These two mathe-

matical ruismsprovidethe basisforexplainingncreasingnequality imul-taneous witheconomicgrowth n less developedcountries,andlead to the

"inevitability"f the growth-equity radeoff,as manyauthorshave cometo characterize he "Kuznetsprocess."While either one of these scenar-ios alone would lead to increasing nequality,Kuznetsthoughtthat bothconditionswereprobablypresent n developingeconomies.

3Speaking to the quality of the data he employed, Kuznets (1955:4) characterized the results

as "preliminary informed guesses." This work is subsequently cited by page number in the

text.



The InvertedU-CurveHypothesis 213

If the nature of sectoral imbalances eads to widening inequalityas

populationshifts fromruralto urbanproduction,what causes the reversal

of thistrend?Kuznets'sanswerwasrooted in the dynamicsof the produc-tion process,but he also recognizedthe importanceof political,sociologi-cal, and demographicprocesses.Kuznetsarguedthat "themajoroffset tothe widening nequality...musthave been a rise in the income share of thelowergroupswithinthenonagriculturalector of thepopulation" 17).Thisis accomplished hrough he institutionalandpoliticalchanges nherent n

"thedynamismof a growingand freeeconomicsociety."Thesechanges n-

volve shifts n the economic andpoliticalexpectationsregardinghe "long-term utilityof wide income inequalities," he growthof a "native"urban

population"moreable to take

advantageof the

possibilitiesof

citylife in

preparationor the economicstruggle,"and the growingpoliticalpowerofthisgroup eadingto protectiveandsupporting egislation(9-17). In other

words,the dislocating ffects of the industrial evolutioneventually ead tosocial andpolitical organizationat the bottom,whichultimately ranslatesinto improvingabsoluteandrelativeeconomicpositionsover time.

In keepingwithhis uniquescientificphilosophy,Kuznetswas deliber-atein recognizinghe limitationsof both theavailabledata and his theoret-ical ventures.He openlycautioned hat"noadequateempiricalevidence s

available orchecking hisconjecture" 19),and he prefacedhisconcludingremarkswiththe caveatthat the invertedU-curve was based on "perhaps5%empiricalnformationand95%speculation, omeof it possiblytainted

bywishful hinking" 26).Butevokinghisgenuineconcern or the scientific

enterprise,Kuznetsargued hat"aslongas (thisresearch) s recognizedasa collection of hunchescallingfor further nvestigationrather than a setof fully tested conclusions, ittle harm andmuchgood may result"(26).4The U-curve, however, was quickly appropriatedby practitionerswhowere much less cautious,an academicprocessof which Kuznets was well

aware:

The timelag maybe longbetween he establishment f empirical indingsand their

absorptionnto a testedtheoryof reliably nvariantpatterns... But the timelag isshortbetweennew findingsandtheiruse to enrichthe background gainstwhichbroadcurrentproblemsare considered. ndeed, hedanger s not that such indingswill be usedforpracticalpurposes,but rather hat the resultswillbe eagerlyseized

uponto yielda spateof hypotheses hat claimtoo muchgenerality, .. (that) mayprovidea startingpointfor distorteduse or for unwarranted ogmaticgeneraliza-tions.(Kuznets,1961:13)

4Kuznetspracticeda distinctiveand nearly nvariantapproach o social scientificresearch.As Lundberg 1984:528) ummarizesn his excellentreview of Kuznets's cholarship, The

specialfeaturesof Kuznets'sanalysisare derived romhis attempts o combinequantitativeprecisionwith total overview, ncluding hought-provokingpeculationson differentwaysandmeans o identify ecular nterconnections."



214 Moran

PART I:THERISE OFA SOCIOECONOMIC LAW"

In the firsttwo decades after its publication, he invertedU-curvehy-

pothesisthatKuznetshadcautiouslywarnedwas basedon "95percentspec-ulation"wastransformed nto an unproblematic blackbox"so widelyac-

ceptedthroughouthe social sciencesthatits existencewas seen as a matter

of fact, and the processesthat created it were considered awlike.Usingthe languageof LatourandWoolgar(1986),black boxes areestablished-or ordinary tatementsturned nto universal acts-through the "deletion

of modalities" uch as thoseidentifying ime, context,or other factors thatbound statementsby particularities. or the U-curve,such modalitieswere

removedwithinthreeintersectingdiscourses hattogetherdefinedthe aca-

demic and political consensusin the nascent field of developmenteco-nomicsin the 1960s and 1970s: he empiricaldiscoursesurrounding ewlycollected socioeconomicdata; he theoreticaldiscourse urrounding ualis-

ticdevelopment;andthepoliticaldiscourse urroundinghe developmental

projectwritlarge.

The U-Curveas an EmpiricalRegularity

One of the mostprofoundandlasting mpactsof Kuznets'sarticlewasa new sense of urgencyregarding he need to collect and analyzereliablecross-nationaldata on income inequality.Inspiredby Kuznets'sprelimi-naryresearch,economistsbeganto moveawayfromconceivingof inequal-ity as the functionaldistributionbetween factorsharesand startedto as-semble data on the size distributionof personalincome withinnations.5Kravis(1960),a studentof Kuznets's,was the firstto applysuch data tothe U-curvehypothesis.He found a positive (althoughcomplex)relation-

shipbetweenincomeinequalityand incomeper capita,and in generalcon-firmed most of Kuznets'sarguments.Oshima(1962), in a study of four

Asian countries, henconcluded hatalthoughchanges n income distribu-tion arenot a result of economicgrowthper se, the relationships indeedcurvilinearand explainedby the processof dualisticdevelopment.Usingintersectoral ncome distributiondata collectedby Kuznets(1963)himself,

Cutright 1967:578) onductedone of the firstquantitative nequality tud-ies in sociologyand endedbystating hat "the economistmaybe heartened

5This movement represents a significant intellectual shift. Although the study of personal in-come distributions dates back to Pareto and earlier, social scientists prior to Kuznets concep-tualized inequality as differentiation between the factors of production more than people or

households. In fact, many thought the latter to be an uninteresting if not unimportant social

phenomena.




that his interpretationof inequalityas a function of the level of economic

developmentalso receivedsolidempirical upport."The numberof studiesaddressingKuznets'shypothesissurgedin the

1970s.Scholarsaffiliatedwithvarious nternationaldevelopmentagencies(primarily he WorldBank) began a concerted effort to collect and con-solidatesignificant mountsof nationalsurveydata,and the appearanceofseveral arge aggregatesof cross-national ataby the mid-1970sbegotsub-stantialamountsof quantitativeiterature.6The cross-sectionalasopposedto longitudinal)characterof this earlydataproved important or evalua-tions of the U-curve.Duringthis period, in nearly every dataset and for

nearly everytime period,high-incomecountriesshowed the lowest levels

ofinequality

ollowedby

the low-incomecountries,

and the middle-income

countriesdisplayed evels of inequalityconsiderablygreaterthanthose of

the othergroups.Thus when levels of economicdevelopmentwereplottedon the horizontalaxisagainst evels of inequalityon the vertical, he resul-tantshapewas a clear invertedU with the fittedregression unction nvari-

ably revealinga negative,statistically ignificantquadraticerm.Althoughthe shortcomingsof such data were well known at the time, and althoughmost recognizeda degree of scatter aroundthe curve,scholarsproceededto takethisplace-in-time napshotand infer that thecountries orming he

invertedU-shapein cross-sectiongot to thesepositionsby followingan in-vertedU-trajectoryof risingthen fallinginequalitiesover time. In retro-

spect,Fei andRanis(1997:324)describethis traditionof researchas "pro-vidingverificationof the seeminglyincontrovertiblenature of Kuznets'scross-sectionalvidence,accompaniedbysomeplausible, f loose,hypothe-ses as to its causes."

Majorstudies of theperiodincludeAdelmanand Morris 1973, 1978),Ahluwalia (1974, 1976a,b), Chenery and Syrquin (1975), Jain (1975),Paukert(1973), Srinivasan 1977), and Weisskoff(1970). In perhapsthe

most influentialof these papers,Ahluwalia(1976b:38) ertifies hat"thereis strong supportfor the propositionthat relativeinequality ncreases inthe earlystagesof development,with a reversalof thistendency n the later

stages."In a rareinstancewherelongitudinaldatawas available,Fishlow

(1972, 1973) found that the Brazilianhigh-growth"miracle"of the late1960s and early 1970swas not egalitarianbut detrimental o low-income

groups. n the late 1970s,Ranis(1977:44) eviewed he assembledempirical

6Themostprominentdatasets o emergeduring hisera werecompiledbyMontekAhluwalia

(1974)and ShailJain(1975)withthe WorldBank;OscarAltimir 1974)withthe WorldBankin conjunctionwiththe EconomicCommissionor LatinAmerica;FelixPaukert 1973)and

JacquesLecaillonetal. (1984)with the InternationalLabourOrganization;MalcolmSawyer(1976)withtheOECD;andanindependent ffortbyIrmaAdelmanandCynthiaTaftMorris

(1973).



216 Moran

research and concluded that "it is fair to say that the overwhelmingevidenceto datepointsin the directionof aninevitable,and rathersevere,conflictbetween most measuresof equityfora given societyanditsgrowth

performance."

The U-Curveas anImplicitAssumption

While the U-curve emerged as an empiricalregularity n the earlycross-nationaliterature,plentyof seeminglyconfirmed deas do not ascend

to lawlikestatus; hatis, theydo not become closedblackboxes. As Yonay

(1998:20)explains, t is not enoughfor a contribution o be recognizedas

"valid" nd then set aside; t must "becomepartof a largerapparatuswhich

canbe usedregularlywithoutneed tojustify(its)use."For the U-curve, he

largerapparatuswas the academicandpoliticalconsensus hat definedthe

postwardevelopmentalist egimefrom the 1950s o the 1970s.Much has been writtenfrom variousperspectiveson the researchand

politicsof the formativeperiodof developmenteconomics ollowingWorld

War II (Datta, 1986; Escobar,1995;Hunt, 1989;Leys, 1996;Meier and

Seers, 1984;Sachs,1976).Nearlyall agree,however,to the highdegreeof

paradigmaticonsensus hat defined heperiod.Newlyidentified"develop-

ment economists"combined a strong practicalorientationwith real opti-mism that intellectualefforts to understand he "viciouscircle of poverty"(as Nurkse(1953) famouslystated the problem)would translate nto the-

oreticallyinformed,state-ledplanningthat would yield rapidresults. As

Martin(1991:27)recalls,by the end of the 1950s"somethingike a main-streamtheoryof EconomicDevelopmenthademerged,"a set of proposi-tions and a commonlogic of approachemanating romEnglandand theUnited States,rooted in classicaltraditions, hat equated"development"withrisingoutputgrowth,agrarianransition,and industrialization.

Hunt (1989:86)calls the early developmentconsensusthe "paradigmof the expandingcapitalistnucleus,"because at the timenearlyeveryoneagreed that the initialgoal for poor countriesseeking to jump-start he

processof industrializationwas to nurturea class of investors that could

slowly accumulatecapitaland transferunderutilizedabor out of agricul-ture into industry.At the discursivecore of this paradigmwas agrariantransformationbased on the conceptof the dualeconomy,best exempli-fiedbyArthurLewis's 1954,1958)highly nfluential"surplusabormodel."

Dualismreferred o the asymmetricaloexistenceof (andconflictbetween)

a "modern" somewhat ndustrialized) ector with a "backward"mostlyagricultural)ector.Accordingto Escobar(1995:78), he conceptof dual-ism "pervadedhe developmentviewof mosteconomistsandinternational

organizationsor severaldecades."




In Lewis'smodel, later elaboratedmathematicallyby Fei and Ranis

(1964), industrialproductionslowly expandson the basis of agricultural

surplusavailableas wage goodsandunlimited"surplusabor"drawn rom

the countryside.The key ingredient n thisprocess, emphasizedby Nurkse(1953),Lewis(1954),andmanyothers,was the role of savingsandspecifi-callyits relativecontribution o nationalproduct.As Lewis(1954) explains,

The centralproblem n the theoryof economicdevelopments how to understandthe processby whicha communitywhichwaspreviously avingandinvesting4 or5 percentof its national ncome or less,converts tselfinto aneconomywherevol-

untary aving s running t 12to 15percentof national ncomeormore.

Theemphasis

onsavings

n the dualistic rameworkprovedimportantfor the ascendenceof the U-curve because it implied a necessarylink

in the early stages of development between the goal of rapid capitalaccumulation nd the need to (re)distributencome to those who can bestsave and invest. This "growth-equityradeoff" s one of the oldest tenetsin economics,andit provedto be a central dea in the earlydevelopmentconsensus.Developmentscholarsheld a fundamentalbelief in the classical

presumptionhat,sincewagesarefullyspenton consumption,he savingsrate of workers is alwaysassumed to be zero. Kalecki's(1942) aphorism

terselyarticulated he idea: "Workerspendwhatthey earn andcapitalistsearn what they spend." Since only capitalistssave and invest (at leastto a significantdegree), economicgrowthrequiresa changein the classdistributionof control over these resources;hence, the wealth-generatingadvantagesof inequalityare not only to be expected, but inequalityis

actually een as a necessarypreconditiono growth indeed,thiswasone ofthe reasonsKuznetsexpressedsurpriseat his initialfindings). nequality'srole in the developmentprocess s explainedquite clearlyby Lewis(1954):"We are not interestedin the people in general,but only say in the 10

percentof them with thelargest ncomes .. theremaining 0percentof thepeople nevermanageto save a significantractionof theirincome.... Thecentralfact of economicdevelopment s that the distribution f incomes isaltered n favorof the savingclass."

While the growth-equitytradeoff Kuznets discovered was theoreti-

cally built into the structureof early models of development,empiricalresearch at the time also seemed to confirm the intersectoralassump-tions of Kuznets'smodel; thus,it becamean intuitivebelief that the exis-

tence of the invertedU-curvecouldbe explainedby theproblems nherent

in dualisticdevelopment.Weisskoff(1970) and Swamy(1967),for exam-

ple, showed thatinequality n low-incomecountries s generallygreater n

the industrial ectorthan in the agriculturalector. Adelman and Morris

(1973)also confirmed hat economicgrowthusuallyproceeds n a dualistic



218 Moran

fashion-growth in the industrial sector was found to be more rapidthan growthin the agricultural ector. These two factors combined with

rapidpopulationgrowth,and rural-to-urbanmigration, nsurethat,ceteris

paribus,national ncome becomes more concentratedn the earlystagesofdevelopmentand more equallydistributed ater on. Robinson(1976:437)derivedthe U-curvefrom a simple, two-sector econometricspecificationand concludedthat the hypothesis s a "necessarymplicationof the work-

ingsof such models"(emphasisadded).Combinedwith such overwhelmingempiricalsupport,Kuznets'shy-

pothesisthusprovidedan eloquentand coherentsynthesisof the analyti-cal andtheoreticalconsensuses hat defined the field of developmenteco-nomicsin the 1960s and 1970s.It affordedan empiricallygroundedmodel

of theprevailing xpectation hat intersectoralnequalitiesmust rise as sur-

plus labormoves fromthe countryto the city,andmayonly be mitigatedin an advancedstage of developmentwhen the modern sector becomes

large enoughto continuegeneratingcapitalas wagessimultaneously tart

to rise (i.e., afterthe laborsurplusprocessruns its course).The U-curvedemonstrated he inevitable results of dualisticdevelopment workingin

practice,and the hypothesiscan be seen as an importantcorollary o this

theoreticalconstruct.Somearguethat the theoreticalconsensusand the U-

curve to which t fitcombined o form a sort of self-fulfilling evelopmentalprophecy,asDattaexplains:

The Kuznets inverted U hypothesis can be derived from the Lewis model and hence,

undermining the inverted U hypothesis also undermines the Lewis model... Nei-

ther in its original elaboration nor in its prevalent implementation has the Lewis

model been different in spirit or approach from the perception of the Kuznets hy-

pothesis, so much so that in writing a critical survey Ranis (1977) himself lumpedKuznets and Lewis together in his paper. (Datta, 1986:18)

As a resultof its paradigmatic fit"within the largerapparatus f the

developmentalconsensus, he invertedU-curve ascended n statusuntil,asSrinivasan1977)and Robinson(1976:437) tate,it had"acquiredhe forceof economic law."By the end of the 1970s,the invertedU-curveprocesswasuniversally onsidereda generalstatementof thehistoricaland univer-

sal relationshipbetween incomeinequalityand economicgrowth.As earlyas 1974,Ahluwalia(1974:17)refers to the invertedU-patternas "a char-acteristicof the developmentprocess affectingunderdeveloped ountries."FrankandWebb(1977:10)call the hypothesisa "natural ffect"causedbydualisticdevelopmentand reinforcedby governmentpolicy.In an influen-

tial andwidelycited reviewof the distribution nddevelopment iteraturein whichthey call the U-curve a "stylized act,"Adelmanand Robinson

(1989:960)write, "The initial decline in the shareof income of the pooris inevitable and arises throughthe introductionof a small high-income




islandin a largelow-incomesea;.., overall the tendencyis for inequalityto increasefor a considerable ime."It is during his time that the scopeof

the U-curve'sstaturespreads romdevelopmenteconomicsto widespread

recognitionacrossthe social sciences.In sociologyandpoliticalscience,aswell as economics,scholars topped testingfor thepresenceof the U-curveandbeganto debate the relativeweightof different ndependentvariablesinvolved n itspersistence n cross-sectional ata.

The U-Curveas PoliticalAffirmation

The transformation f the U-curve into a universal"blackbox" en-

tailed a thirdintersectingdiscourse n whichthe U-curve became an im-portantpoliticalmetaphor n the historically adicalandrevolutionarydeathat therichcountriesof the worldcould andwouldfacilitate"developing"theformercolonies of theso-calledThirdWorld.Fromtheverystartof this

project n the 1940s,the conceptof developmentwas reducedto growth n

incomeper capita.As discussedabove,developmental hinkingquicklyco-

alesced around heproblemsof limitedcapitalaccumulation nd inefficient

labor andcapitalallocation,and these concernscame to be regardedas the

problemsof

development, rrespectiveof the social, cultural,or

politicalimplicationsnvolved.Inequalityandpoverty n thisworldviewwere either

ignored,or consideredautomaticbyproducts,"undesirable"ertainly,yetnecessarypreconditionsand inevitable outcomes of the successfuldevel-

opment process.As Lewis (1976:26)flatlystated, "developmentmust be

inegalitarian."But the worseningof wages and livingstandardswere not somehow

peripheralo the models andpoliciesof developmentpractice;ndeed,they"belongedto their inner architecture"Escobar, 1995:80).Withinthe du-

alisticframework,t was all too easyto rationalizemeasures o hold downwagesinrural-urbanermsof trade nthe "efficient" llocationof laboranduse of profits.In thissense,the metaphorof the invertedU-curve couldbe

invoked,eitherexplicitlyor by unstated ntuition,to pacifyconcernsoverthe detrimental ffectsof theideologyof economicgrowth-anythingthat's

wrongwith economicgrowthwill eventuallygo away,all that'sneeded ismoregrowth.7

At the sametime, a real (some have saidnaive) optimismpermeatedthe developmentalconsensusbasedon widespread aithin the inherently

progressivenatureof industrialization. hedevelopmentcommunityof the

7Thepoliticalmessageof the invertedU-curvemetaphor ives on in the various"U-curves"in existencetoday, including he environmentalU-curve and the demographic ransitionU-curve o name two.



220 Moran

1950s and 1960sexpected quick success,and scholarsand policymakerssketchedoptimisticpicturesof steady progress romunderdevelopmento-

ward advanced, ndustrialcapitalism.Kuznets'shypothesispresentedthe

calculatedmessagethatthegrowthprocess tself waseventuallyequalizing.Thushigh-growth olicesantithetical, r at leastambivalent,owardequal-

ity would not condemnsocietyto acceptingcurrent nequalities orever-

the institutional ndpoliticalchanges nherent n "thedynamism f a grow-

ing and free economicsociety"would eventually prove to be egalitarian

(Kuznets,1955:9).A commonpractice n the empiricalarticlescitedabove,forexample, nvolvedsolvingthe quadratic quationsyielding he inverted

U-curve shape to obtain "turningpoints"indicatingwhen in fact these

changescould be expected.As Kuznets 1955:17)himselfremarked,"Much

is to be said for the notion thatonce the earlyturbulentphasesof indus-trializationandurbanizationhad passed,a varietyof forcesconvergedto

bolster the economicpositionof the lower-incomegroupwithinthe urban

population."Thus,beyondthe unquestionable mpactof the U-curvehypothesis n

the academy, ts largely unqualifiedacceptancewas also grounded n the

politicsof the internationalpolicyarena.Duringthisperiod,developmentscholarsregularlyworked orinternational rganizationsuch astheUnited

Nations and WorldBankand often advised ndustrializing overnmentsdi-rectly, exerting"enormous nfluenceupon the developmentdiscourse...and thereforeon development n practice" FitzGerald,1991:16).

PART II: THE OPENING OF A BLACK BOX

The unanimitysurrounding he U-curve hypothesis began to face awide challengein the 1980s.By the end of the decade,the interpretation

of the U-curve turned frombeing generally regardedas an "ironlaw ofdevelopment"to a contentioushypothesisassociated with contradictoryfindingsand ambiguousconclusions.At firstglance, this transitionmightseem likeanapt description f thesortof scientific evolutionsKuhn(1962)described-routinizedpuzzle-solving eadingto the discoveryof empiricalanomaliesthatcouldnot be explainedwithin the U-curve framework.Butthe reinstatementof modalities hat werepreviouslyconsidereddeleted-

the transitionof an unproblematicblack box into a limited statementde-

pendenton particular ontexts-needs to be precededby the deconstruc-

tion of the widerapparatuswithinwhich he blackbox was seen as an essen-tial foundation.In the case of the U-curve,thisprocesswasaccomplishedthrough heveryun-Kuhnian ounterrevolutionndevelopmenteconomicsthatby the end of the 1980s eft thefield in completeruins.




A ParadigmDestroyed

Duringthe 1970s,the sociopoliticalclimatesurrounding evelopment

academicsand policymakingwas being completelytransformed romtheone that emerged duringthe formativeperiod.As Leys (1996:20)charac-terizesthe shifting imes,"The world in whichKeynesianpolicymaking-and its offshoots,developmenteconomicsanddevelopment heory-madesense had changed fundamentally."Duringthis decade,the developmen-talistprojectbeganto draw irefrom allpoliticaldirections or two reasons.

First,it becameincreasingly lear that the identification f socialprogresswith economicgrowthwas not solvingthe long-standingproblemsof in-

equalityand

povertyas the

early developmentalmodels had

predicted.Fishlow's(1972, 1973) celebratedfindingthat the Brazilianhigh-growth"miracle"wasinegalitariano such an extent that thepoor (and especiallythe ruralpoor) had become worse off despite rapid growth,was followed

by Bardham's1973) study,whichfound the same effect in India.Second,a

series of politicaldisastersoccurred n the ThirdWorld,ranging rom civilwars in Africa to the spreadof violent military dictatorships hroughoutLatinAmerica,andthese were takento be, in the words of one develop-mentpioneer, "clearly omehowconnectedwith the stressesandstrainsac-

companyingdevelopmentand 'modernization' (Hirschman,1981:23). nshort,developmentalismwasnot working,andby the end of the 1970sthe

postwardoctrineof ThirdWorlddevelopmentwasbeingboth"destroyed"

(Martin,1991:52)romwithinand"radicallyedefined"ArrighiandSilver,

2000:24) rom outside.

The initialresponsewithin the developmentcommunitywas not toabandon he fieldbut,ironically, o enlarge t through nternalself-critique.The meaningof developmentwasexpanded o includenewobjectives uchas social welfare, environmentalprotection,and women's rights,and in

the early1970s he Robert McNamara dministrationntroduceda povertyagendaat the WorldBank.According o thisnewapproachno tradeoffwas

necessarybetweenthe goalsof outputgrowthandworseningsocial condi-tions such as inequality;he fruits of growth, t wasnowthought,could bebetter distributedwithouteffectingfutureeconomicperformance.n 1974,Hollis Cheneryand his associatesat the WorldBankwrote Redistribution

with Growth,a seminal culminationof work under the new World Bank

approachthat ultimately "changed he course of development thinking"

(Bruno and Pleskovic,1996:2).Cheneryand his colleagues attemptedto

refocus the field on the need to allocatea greatershareof investmentgainsinto formsthat would benefit thepoorest groups n society.

But, as KorzeniewiczandSmith(2000:30)explain,"Noclear andgen-erally acceptedframeworkhad been establishedas yet for theseconcerns;



222 Moran

... the Bank'sstaffwas only weaklycommitted o the McNamaraagenda,and even the institution'sknowledgeaboutpoverty, inequality,and pos-sible policieswas limited."Thus,despiteinternalreevaluationswithin the

development orthodoxy,the black box of the inverted U-curveremainedclosed. The theoretical rameworkunderlyingRedistributionwithGrowth

was not so mucha refutationof the "iron aw,"but a tacit acceptanceofit. Since income distribution hows a naturaltendencytoward increased

polarizationn the firststagesof development,Chenery'sgroupwas left to

arguethatpolicycouldmake a difference n speedingthe Kuznetsprocess

along (Bourguignon, 996;Fishlow,1996).In a separateseries of papersbyMontekAhluwaliaand othersat the WorldBank(1974,1976a,b;Ahluwalia

et al., 1979),often reprintedandwidelycited throughout he field,the U-

curvehypothesiswas stillunderstood o be a centralconstruct.Regardingthe policy implicationsof this series, Anand and Kanbur(1993b:20)say,"Inan influential iterature, hese have become influentialpapers."Basedon this research,the World Bank adopted the invertedU-relationshipin the late 1970s and early 1980sto make projectionsof inequalityand

povertyto the year2000,andpublishedthese forecasts n the 1978, 1979,and 1980 WorldDevelopment Reports (Anand and Kanbur, 1993b).

Lackingthe means for effectiveimplementationas well as experienc-

ing "oppositionto its aims by a broadrange of actors,"the McNamaraagenda was rapidly droppedin subsequentWorld Bank administrations

(KorzeniewiczandSmith,2000:31).Worsestill,the very conceptof devel-

opmentas an intellectualandpoliticalprojectwasin deep crisis.The fieldfacednot only increasingly ocal criticisms romthe old guard (Bhagwati,1989;Lewis, 1984;Sen, 1983;Stern,1989;andthe variouscontributionsnMeierandSeers,1984),but also causticattacks romprofessedcriticswithtitles such as The Poverty of "Development Economics" (Lal, 1985), and

Development Economics on Trial (Hill, 1986). While some were character-

izingthe field as being merelyat an "impasse" Booth, 1985;Schuurman,1993;Sklair,1988;VandergeestandButtell,1988),others, ncludingpromi-nent formerpioneers,werewritingobituariesof the developmentalproject

(Hirschman,1981;Seers,1979).In short,the old consensuswas"witnessingits progressivedissolution"Escobar,1995:94).What came to be known as

"dependancy" nd"world-systems" erspectivesprovidedalternative on-

ceptualizations f theproblems andpossibilities)of nationaldevelopmentandindustrialization,nd becamepenetratingcritiquesof mainstreamde-

velopmentorthodoxy.The fieldwas growingcognitively racturedand in-

creasinglycontroversial,and "development"was becoming"a shapeless,amoeba-likeword"(Sachs,1990:109).

It was againstthis backdrop hat the neoliberalcounterrevolutionnthe 1980s effectivelyended internalefforts to recastthe developmental




project n what became a motivateddestructionof all thatthe developmen-talregimehadcome to be (ArrighiandSilver,2000;Leys,1996;Toye,1993).As ArrighiandSilver(2000:21)argue,"Thiswasno Kuhnian cientificrev-

olution. Itwasa strictlypoliticalcounterrevolution." ustasthe birthof de-velopment nthe 1940sdid not resultfrom a naturalprocessof scientificad-

vancements,neither was its death hastenedby theoretical, nstitutional,or

methodological"progress"hat somehowuncoveredproblemsandeventu-

allydealt withthem.Both wereradical,politicalresponsesby powerfulac-torsin the capitalistworld-economy.By theendof the decade,the researchandpracticeof developmenteconomicsquicklywent "frompromised andto wasteland" ArrighiandSilver,2000:11),until the fieldbecame"aruinin the intellectual

andscape"Sachs,1990:2),a "mined,

unexplorableand"

(Esteva, 1992:22).Theoriginsandprocesses nvolved n the neoliberalcounterrevolution,

andthe consequentcollapseof the postwardevelopmentregime,have notbeen the subjectof muchscholarly nquiry,and the full explanation s ob-

viouslybeyondthe rangeof this study.8Scholarshave largelyfocused onthe effectsof the transformation, nd for our more limitedpurposeshereit is enoughto analyzehow changes n the broaderapparatusn whichtheU-curvepreviously it (inthis case thecompleterejectionof the apparatus)

producedchanges n thewaythe U-curvewasinterpretedn theoryandap-pliedinpractice.Thedevelopmentalparadigmhatemerged n thepostwarperiodhadformed,as Escobar(1995:40)describes,a "system hat allowedthe systematic reationof objects,concepts,andstrategies .. [and]definedthe conditionsunderwhichobjects,concepts, heories,andstrategiescan be

incorporatednto the discourse."Thecounterrevolution estroyed hissys-tem, allowing or the reinterpretationf its componentparts-the openingof previouslyclosedblack boxes.

QuestioninganEmpiricalRegularity

Beginning in the 1980s, scholarsbegan findingdifficultieswith the

overwhelmingempiricalsupportthe U-curve received in the 1960s and

8Therehavebeen a few attempts o explain he counterrevolution. rrighiand Silver(2000)attribute he events to a concertedpoliticalmovement, ed by a radicalchangein UnitedStatesmilitaryand financialpolicies,to respondto the hegemoniccrisis of the 1970s and

(re)consolidate he establishedhierarchyof globalwealth. Cockett(1995)emphasizes heroleof a handfulof economists n slowlydevelopingneoliberal/anti-Keynesianoctrineuntilmaterial orces(similar o thoseemphasized y ArrighiandSilver,2000)changed n theirdi-rection.Similarly klair 1997:524) rgues hatthe counterrevolution as a "socialmovement

for capitalism"edbya "transnationalapitalist lass."



224 Moran

1970s.Thisempiricalncriminationwasbasedon two interrelated ritiquesthatcombined o revealthe U-curveto be a sort of "empiricalmirage"-aself-contradictory atternoften visible in cross-section(and with certain

data and methods) while simultaneouslydisappearing ongitudinally orwith other data and methods). One line of argumentfocused on the

reliabilityof the cross-sectionaldata itself in light of wide intercountryvariation in data-collectionmethods, and possible measurement errors

resultingfrom systematicreportingbiases (e.g., Gagliani,1987;Nugent,1983).As a group,the inequalityestimates assembled n the 1970swereassociatedwith largeinconsistenciesn variabledefinitionsand collection

techniquesrenderingcomparabilitybetween countries(and often within

countriesover time) suspectat best. Plagued by severe limitations n the

documentationof secondarysources and accuracyof the data,inequalityestimateswere oftenextrapolatedrom nformedguessesbased on national

accounts, or establishedusing surveys conducted on nonrepresentativesubsets of the national population (e.g., taxpayers,or urban residents

only). On manyoccasions, t was not altogetherclear who conducted the

originalsurveyor how it wasactuallyadministered.9 aith(1983:367)usedAhluwalia's(1974) material to arguethat the inverted U-curve hasonlybeen confirmedbecauseof statisticaldifficulties, otingthat "evenmarginal

variations"n availabledatasets ead to the "virtualdisappearance"f theinverted U-curve. Fields (1984a) conducted a similarreevaluationusingPaukert's 1973)data,andagainvoiced considerabledoubtconcerning he

commonalityof the U-curvefindings.Another criticaltrackconcerned the use of cross-sectionalresearch

designsto inferlongitudinalpatternsof change.Primarilybecause histori-cal informationwaslacking,empirical esearch ollowingKuznetsreliedon

relativelysimple,cross-sectionalmethods that entailed"(1)measuring he

degree of inequality n each (country),(2) measuringother characteristics

of each country(e.g., level of GNP, rate of growth, mportanceof agricul-ture in total product,etc.), and (3) relatingthe level of inequality o that

economy'scharacteristics,singcorrelationor regressionanalysis" Fields,1980:59).The idea was to take theseplace-in-time napshots,almostalwaysdepictingan invertedU growth-equity attern,and infer that the countries

9Overtime these datasetsgrewintojumbledconfigurationsf different ypesof aggregatedestimates.Importantdefinitionaldifferencesbecameblurredor forgottento the point of

renderinghe datavirtually ncomparable cross(andoftenwithin)countries.Forexample,

Paukert's 1973:124)widelyused dataset s basedon a compilation f 44 countriesproducedby Adelman and Morris"as set forthin variouspapersby these authors."He then deletesfourcountries n whichdata were "so bad that theywereunsuitable," eplaces3 countrieswith "superiordata from othersources,"and adds information or 19 countries romnewsources.




forming he curvilinear hapein time t, got to these positionsby followingthe pathof the U-curve from some timeto.10

Theseprocedurescame underheavycriticismn the 1980s and in time

became the targetof one of the mostdamaging ritiquesof theU-curvehy-pothesis (Datta, 1986;Fields, 1980, 1984a;Gagliani,1987;Papanek,1978;

Saith,1983;Stewart,1978;Sundrum,1990).The argumentwas that while

an inverted U-curvemight accuratelydescribe the growth-equitytrajec-tory of the three nations includedin Kuznets's ongitudinalanalysis,and

even thoughsuch a curvemightalso be observed in cross-sectionaldata,the actualpathof changefor most countriesmightnot be accurately epre-sentedby the U-curvemodel.As Gagliani(1987:323) xplains,"Theavail-

able cross-sectional cattermight perfectly

fit anincreasing

50 line whileeach countryis silently moving along a 450 decreasingone." Or as Tilly

(1984:35)arguesmorebroadly,"There s no logicalconnectionbetween the

sequenceof change .. followedby individual ountriesandthe differences

that showupin cross-section."

Some maintained hat the U-curverepresentedcross-regionalas op-

posedto cross-national) ariation n inequalitystructures, rguing hatthe

U-curveis little more than a depictionof averages among groupsof sim-

ilarlydevelopedcountries(Fields, 1980). Papanek (1978:265)recognized

that,insteadof curvilinear hape existingacross the entiresample,"thereare probably our groupsof countrieswith differences n average ncome

per capitaand inequality,whichmay permitin cross-countryanalysisan

invertedU form to be imposed upon the data."Papanek's ourgroupingsweredevelopednations,EasternEurope,rawmaterialexporters,and other

LDCs,but this observationalso appliesto clusters of nationsgroupedbygeographic egionand/orby similar nstitutionalarrangementssee, for ex-

ample,Fields, 1984b;Papanekand Kyn, 1987; Sundrum,1990).Lecaillonet al. (1984)furtherobserved that small variations n sample composition,

or minor adjustments o individualobservations,can make the U-curvestatisticallydisappear.

Giventhepurposesof thisstudy, t is interesting o note that theseem-

piricalcritiqueswere well knownyet overlookedin the decadesin whichthe U-curvegained ascendence. Researchersoften recognizedthe seem-

inglyrandomandinsignificant atureof thegrowth-equity elationship, s-

peciallywithin the left-handportionof the U-curvepattern.Ahluwalia's

(1974) contribution o RedistributionwithGrowth, or example,analyzes13 developing countries in the 1960s and finds that as many countries

10Previouscholarswereworkingwithina well-established racticepioneeredat Harvard hatdrew ongitudinalnferencesaboutdynamic rowthprocesses rom ointestimates hat nte-

grated imitedtime-seriesnformationwith cross-section ata(see Chenery,1960;CheneryandSyrquin, 975;CheneryandTaylor,1968).



226 Moran

experiencedeclininginequality(6) as rising,with 1 showingno change.He thenconcludes(1974:13) hat,"the scattersuggestsconsiderablediver-

sity of countryexperience n terms of changein relativeequality .. [and]

there is no strongpatternrelatingchangesin the distributionof incometo the growthof GNP."Moreover,the relationshipbetween cross-section

and time-seriespatternshas long been debated(withbroader mplicationsthantesting heU-curve(see,forexample,KuhandMeyer,1957),andthese

debates were also well known to researchersof the 1960s and1970s.Theyknew thelimitationsof cross-national ata,asSrinivasan1977)states nhis

study:"Thereare well-knowndifficultieswithinterpreting ndprojectinga

cross-sectional elationshipover time." Kuznetshimselfwarned n the late

1960s:

The valueof such(cross-section)vidence orgeneratingomepreliminaryunchescannotbe denied.Butunless nnovationalchangescan somehowbe taken onto ac-count n the use of cross-section ataproper,useof itsresultsmay eadtoerroneousinferencesconcerningpast changes n structuren the processof growth.And thesameapplies,paripassu, o application f cross-section nalysis o projectionsntothe future. Kuznets,1966:436)

When the blackbox wasbeingclosed,thesecritiqueswereoverlooked,often mentioned n footnotes and asasides,and modalities urroundinghe

U-curvecontinuedto be deleted.Not until the social andpoliticalclimateshifted did these samecritiquesbecomeaccepted; heywere moved out offootnotes and into centralarguments,and modalitiesbegan to be addedback on. This suggests,as the constructivist chool claims,that the valueand meaningof empiricalevidence is not objectivelygiven but in some

waysis alsocontingentuponthe time-and-place ontext withinwhichsuchevidence is beingproducedandnegotiated.

Shifting Theoretical Discourse

Remarkableshifts in the broader social and politicalcontext led tointellectual shifts in the ways inequalitywas being conceptualized, hus

bringingchangesto the realizationof the U-curve and its academicand

policy relevance. New debatesemergedoutsideof economics aroundtherelativeimportanceof social andpoliticalfactorseffectinggrowth-equityprocesses.Some investigatedthe impact of differentialaccess to educa-

tion (e.g., Meyer, 1977; Milner,1987; Teachman,1983).A different line

of interpretationemphasizedthe importanceof nondemocratic orms ofpolitical rule in promoting greater inequality (e.g., Muller, 1985, 1988,1989;Simpson,1990; Stewart,1978).This perspectivewas challengedbya groupof scholarsanalyzing he impactof democracyon inequality(e.g.,




Bollen and Jackman,1985;Jackman,1974;Rubinsonand Quinlan, 1977;

Weede, 1982;Weede andTiefenbach,1981).Still anotherseriesof debates

developedaroundthe issue of economicdependencyand a country'spo-sition in the structureof the world-economy.Some arguedthat the dy-namics of "dependent development,"most often operationalizedas the

degree of multinationalcorporation penetrationor the amount of for-

eign direct investment,promotes inequalityin noncore economies (e.g.,Bollen andJackman,1985;Bornschier,1983;BornschierandBallmer-Cao,

1979;Bornschierand Chase-Dunn,1985; Chase-Dunn, 1975;Evans and

Timberlake,1980; Rubinson,1976).11World-systems cholarsquestionedthe utilityof conceptualizing rowthandinequalityas a national-levelphe-nomena in the first

place, arguinghat the axial division of labor between

coreandperipheral ones of thecapitalistworld-economywasthe key pro-cess generatingandreproducing nequalities.

In the shiftingacademic andscape, nequalitywas no longer conceptu-alized as a blackbox simplistically ndmechanicallygeneratedby growthprocesses; t was a socialproblemthat itself needed to be theorized.Re-

gardingthe interpretationof the U-curve,this opened to questionmore

specifically he twinmetaphorsof the U-curveargumentas developedin

theprevious wodecades: 1) that a growth-equityradeoff s economically

necessaryatlow levels of development; nd(2) thatgrowthprocesseseven-tuallyreducethisinequalityat advanced evels of development.

The firstof these theoreticalchallengeswasgeneratedbythediscoveryof theEastAsiandevelopmentexperience. n1979,Feiet al.published heirinfluential volume Growth withEquity: The Taiwan Case, a study that raised

the lid on what would later be called "theEast Asian Miracle" Birdsallet al., 1995;Findlayand Wellisz, 1993;WorldBank, 1993).The develop-mentexperiences n East Asia wereparticularlyhallengingo the U-curve

hypothesis.In the last half of the twentiethcentury,these were the only

poor countriesactually"developing"o any significantandlastingdegree,and they did so via dualisticrural to urbanindustrialization.Yet the de-

velopmentalexperienceof East Asia largelychallenged he theoreticalas-

sumptionsKuznetsmaderegardingdualisticdevelopmentand showedwhy,the U-curveprocessfar frominevitable,could be altogetheravoidable.

UnderlyingKuznets'soriginalanalysiswas an importantpresumptionthat the industrial ector is the only dynamicsectorin the economy.Con-

traryto what Kuznets(andother scholarsof that time) thought, develop-mentin East Asia showed that intersectoral ransitions ouldlead to rising

11Yetthis argument was actively disputed by others (Weede, 1980;Weede and Kummer, 1985;Weede and Tiefenbach, 1981; and later by Crenshaw, 1992; Firebaugh, 1992; and Simpson,1990).



228 Moran

incomesin the agriculturalector andfallingurban-ruralnequalities.Feietal. (1979)foundthemostimportant ontributiono Taiwan's"equitywith

growth"phenomenonwas a more labor-intensive gricultural utputmix,

combinedwitha tremendousexpansionof ruralnonagriculturalctivities.These factorstogether disprovedKuznets'sassumptionsby demonstratingthat: (1) A shift from agriculturalo nonagricultural ctivities "does not

have to entail a shift from a moreequaldistributiono a less equaldistri-

bution if outputmixes and technologiesin the nonagriculturalector are

becoming ncreasinglyabor-intensive, bsorbing he poorestand landless

farmers" Ranis, 1996:51);and (2) income levels in the ruralsector could

improvewithgrowth(as a consequenceof risingproductivityand increas-

inglabor-intensiveechnologies).WhatFei etal. (1979)found in Taiwanbecameincreasingly onfirmed

whenthebroader"miracle"wasanalyzedasa moreregionalphenomenon.In six of the Asian economiesexperiencing apideconomicgrowthduringthe last halfof the twentiethcentury-Indonesia, Japan,Korea,Malaysia,Thailand,and Taiwan-the agriculturalectorsweresubstantial ndhighly

dynamic.12 raditionally quitable andownershippatterns Indonesiaand

Thailand)or extensive land reform(Koreaand Taiwan)allowedfor ini-

tially equitableruralsectors(BerryandCline,1979),whilewide adoption

of Green Revolutiontechnology,highinvestments n rural nfrastructure,and limited taxation of agriculturemeantthat rural ncomes andproduc-tivityrose morerapidly n East Asia thanin otherregions.As a result,ru-ral incomesactually mprovedwith industrialgrowth,and urban-rural n-come differentialswere smaller n EastAsia thanin mostotherdevelopingeconomies.13

The East Asian experiencewas not kind to the laborsurplusmodel,nor the conceptsof dualisticdevelopmentand the growth-equity radeoff

upon whichit was based.Theoretically, he conceptof inequalitybecame

inverted.Thinkingof inequalityas a necessaryandunavoidable ide-effectof growthgives wayto a transposedrelationshipwhere initial distribution

of assets determines oris at least apreconditionof) futureratesof growth.Insteadof generatingwealthaccumulation, s in the dualisticmodels,in-

equality s now seen as growth-adverse.Various theoriesnow seek to cap-ture thisphenomenon,whetherby emphasizinghe unequaldistribution f

12HongKongandSingaporeare two countrieswithinthe "EastAsian miracle" hat almost

entirely ackagriculturalectors.

13Accordingo Turnham1993; eproducednWorldBank,1993:34), etween1965and1988,agriculturalncomesgrewat anaverageannual ateof3.2% nEast Asia(comparedo 2.4%in SouthAsia, 2.3% n LatinAmerica,and 1.9% n sub-SaharanAfrica),andproductivityroseby2.2%onaverageannually comparedo 0.6% nSouthAsia,1.55%n LatinAmerica,and 0.3% n sub-Saharan frica).




land,unequalinvestments n humancapital (especially education),or the

politicaland macroeconomicnstabilitygeneratedbyconflictover distribu-

tional issues.

Whilethe East Asian modelfundamentally hanged hinkingabout n-

equalityand dualisticdevelopment,a second theoreticalchallengecame via

changingpatternsof inequality n the developedworld.In whathas beencalled the "greatU-turn," ong periodsof converging ncomesin several

wealthynations have ended, giving way to a significantresurgence n in-

equalities(Atkinson,1995;Danzigerand Gottschalk,1993;Harrisonand

Bennett,1988).While there is some debate on the extent to whichthisphe-nomenon extends beyond the United States and Great Britain,the idea

thatequality

could worsen ndeveloped

economiesundermines he secondKuznetsmetaphor,that "the dynamismof a growingand free economic

society" s fundamentally ndunendingly galitarian.The theoreticalargumentsused to explainthis effectemphasizeshift-

ing patterns n the location anddynamicsof industrialproductionand theterms of international rade. Morebroadly,so the consensusgoes, the dy-namicsof technological hangehave resulted nthe"deindustrialization"f

wealthycountriesand the simultaneous iseof a new skill-driven conomyin whichhigh-value nformationand technologicalservicesreplace high-

volumemanufacturings the leadingeconomic sector.This shiftin leadingsectorshasdrastically lteredthe relativedemand or andsupplyof skilled

and unskilledworkers,generatingdownwardpressureson thewagesof the

unskilled,while dramaticallyncreasingreturnsto the skilled,thus creat-

ing a newly polarizedearningsdistributionBluestoneandHarrison,1982;Bound andJohnson,1992;Katz andAutor,2000).

PART 3: U-CURVE(S) IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

(This) study's indingsoffer broadsupport or Kuznets'shypothesis.

-Randolph and Lott(1993)

The empirical status of the Kuznets hypothesis in ... multicountrycontextsremainsunsettled.

-Ram (1997)

The Kuznetscurve s fiction.

-Rodrik (1998)

What are we to make of Kuznets'sU-curvehypothesis today?Have50 years of continuousintellectualattention resultedin any substantive



230 Moran

progressregarding he general applicability f Kuznets'sarguments?Ob-

viouslysuch an evaluationdependson one's ideaof "progress,"et if valueis measuredsimplyby the powerof theoretical nsightsto outlastthe so-

cial and intellectualcontextsin whichthey arise,Kuznets'shypothesis scertainlyone of the most extraordinarytatements n the social sciences.

As the quotationsabove signify,contentionstill exists surrounding he

U-curve, llustrating oth the lasting ntellectual egacyof Kuznets'scontri-

bution and the lingeringallureof its intellectualandpolicy interpretations.As describedabove,shifting nterpretive limatesopenedtheU-curveas an

unproblematic"blackbox."Yet the theoreticalandempirical crutiny hat

resulteddid not lead to the abandonment f Kuznets'sdeas,but to thecre-

ation ofmany

"U-curves."The U-curvenow means different hingsto dif-

ferent communitiesof scholars,and its status thereforeremainscontestedand relevantacross he social sciences.

The continueduncertainty urroundinghe U-curvein the academic

literatures mirroredbyitsmixedapplicationnpolicycircles.In aninfluen-

tialreporton inequalityn LatinAmericaproducedbythe Inter-American

DevelopmentBank(1998:2),U-curveprocessesare stillpresentedas "frus-

trating"necessities on the "tortuouspath"of development-that is, until

the long-run optimismof the U-curvecan be evoked: "It has long been

acceptedthat economicdevelopmentworsens ncomedistribution, t leastin the early stages.... After a certainpoint, the relationshipbetween de-

velopmentand equalityis a win-win situation,but untilthen, results canbe frustratingat best." Yet elsewhere the World Bank (2000:15),once adevout adherentof the U-curve,now concedes that "[e]vidence rom re-cent decades has not validated[Kuznets-based heories],and it now ap-pears likely that growth, equality,and reductions n povertycan proceedtogether."

Finding he EmpiricalU-Curve

Despite the empiricalcriticisms n the 1980s,quantitativeassessments

of Kuznets'shypothesishave continued uninterruptedand undeterred.

Notwithstandinghe sheer volume of articlesaddressing he inverted U-

curve(or perhapsbecause of it), researchers ontinue to produceambigu-ous empirical indingsandcontradictory ssessments.Somearecontinuingthe traditionof Fields(1980)and Robinson(1976) by attemptingo model

the "functionalorm"of Kuznets'shypothesis, ncludingeconometriccon-ditions for a turning point in the inequality-developmentrelationship(Anad andKanbur,1993a;Galor andTsiddon,1996;Glomm andRaviku-

mar, 1998;andRam,1995).Manymoreapplyvariousregression echniques




to assortedcross-nationalamples.Ofthese,Dovring(1991),IADB (1998),Jha (1996),Randolphand Lott (1993),Milanovic(1994),Nielsen (1994),andNielsenandAlderson(1995)continueto advocatethe existenceof the

U-curvecross-nationally,whileFishlow(1996),BourguignonandMorrison

(1998),Lanticanet al. (1996),and Ogwang(1995)offer more cautiousor

mixedsupport.

People continueto find empiricalsupportfor the U-curvefor three

reasons.First,no consistentcriteria xistsfor whatsignifies"support" f the

U-curvehypothesis. s it a squaredquadraticerm nregressionmodels?Or

astatistically ignificant ariablemeantto capturedualisticdevelopment? s

it anyindication hatinequalityhasincreased n less-developedcountries?

Orevidenceof an

upand then down

inequalitytrajectoryn

any growthcontext?For example,Lanticanet al. (1996)findevidence for the U-curve

in urbanbut not ruralareas,andin primarybut not secondaryschool en-

rollment.Bigsten(1986)finds nequality ising henfalling nKenya,before

againrising henfalling.The second sourceof empiricalsupport, nitially explainedby Fields

(1980) and recentlyreconfirmedby Anand and Kanbur(1993b),is that

quantitative pecifications mployedto test the hypothesis(includingdata

sources,samplecomposition, imeperiod,accompanyingndependentvari-

ables, and regressiontechniques) determinethe findings.The invertedU-curverelationships inconsistentwithrespectto econometricspecifica-tion, and statistically ignificantU-curve-relatedparameterestimatescan

still be derivedin variouscross-national amples.For exampleOgwang's

(1995) supportfor the U-curvevariesby both the inequalityand devel-

opment indicatorsused. Deininger and Squire (1996:571)conclude that

analysesof past aggregationsof data,where comparisonsare made with-

out regardto consistentdefinitions,"couldlead to virtuallyany type of

growth-equitypattern."Examplesof this effect in the U-curveliterature

includethe appearanceof largedecreases n inequality n Kenya (Bigsten,1986)andthepresenceof a U-curveeffectinMalaysia Meesook,1975)and

Korea(Kwack,1990).Lastly,muchasin the olddatasets, he latest datacontinues o illustrate

an inverted U growth-equitypatternin cross-section-currentinequalitylevels are usually owerat higherlevels of incomeandhigherinequalitiesare moreprevalent n LatinAmericaand otherpartsof the middle-income

range.Thepersistenceof thecross-nationalU-curvecan be attributedo the

variouslatent,country-leveldeterminantsof inequality(includinghistori-

cal inequality evels) that are significantly orrelatedwith current ncomelevels. Thus,authorshave made the cross-sectionalU-curve"disappear,"or at least becomeless robust, n econometricmodelsby simply ncluding

country-level"fixedeffects"(AnandandKanbur,1993b;Brunoetal.,1998;



232 Moran

DeiningerandSquire,1998;Ram,1997).14Instudieswherecountry-specificdummyvariablesare addedto models,the U-curvenot only goes away,but

in some cases is even reversed.Higginsand Williamson 1999:10) eem to

agree with this line of interpretation, tatingthat over time "theKuznetscurvedisappearedfromcross-section)whendummyvariables or Asia andLatin Americawere added."

Yet whiledifferenteconometricapproachesandmethodological pec-ificationscan lend various evels of supportto the hypothesisas variouslydefined, the overwhelmingempiricalevidence today does not point to

the existenceof a meaningful nverted U-curvepatterneitherin termsofa by-productof dualisticdevelopmentor simplya pictureof risingthen

falling nequalitiesover time

(Anadand

Kanbur,1993b;Bruno et

al., 1998;Deiningerand Squire,1996, 1998;Kim,1997;Li et al., 1998;Lipton,1997;

Ram, 1997;Ravallion,1995).In terms of empiricalgenerality, he mostro-

bust findingemergingfrom today's quantitative iterature s that no sys-tematic relationshipexists between averageincome levels and/or subse-

quent growthand incomeinequality,either for nations on averageor even

withinaggregatedncomegroupings.As opposedto followingapredictablepattern,trends in the contemporaryworld are characterizedby tremen-dous heterogeneityof growth-equity experience. Deininger and Squire

(1998:261,282) review their comprehensivedatabaseof inequalityesti-matesandconclude hatinthefewcountrieswherea significantinear rendin inequalitycan be detected,"itcontradicts he Kuznetshypothesisalmostas often as confirmingt."In a recent New York Timesarticle,GaryFieldsstates the prevailingview that "the Kuznets's curveis neither a law norevena central endency.15 hepattern s that there isno pattern" Krueger,2002).Insum,the U-curveas acontemporarympiricalandpolicyheuristicis best characterizedby Gustav Ranis (1996:50),who declares,"As I readthe evidence,it suggeststhat it is time to give a decent burial to that fa-

mous 'law,'which was actuallyadvancednot by Kuznets,who was muchtoo cautious,butby Kuznetsians,who were not."

The U-Curveas a Theoretical-Historical tatement

As Ranis implies, Kuznets's formulation of the U-curve hypothe-sis was always more historicallygrounded, sociologically sophisticated,

14This s accomplished via a series of country-specific dummy variables added to the traditional

quadraticmodel. The argument is that these dummy variables, while preserving the commonKuznets structure, allow inequality to differ across countries that are at the same level of

development.150f course, the fact that the inverted U-curve is being discussed in the New York Times in

2002 is itself a testament to the uncommon impact of Kuznets's hypothesis over time.




andintellectuallycautiousthan is generallyappreciated.And refutingthe

U-curveasapredictablepatterndoes notmeanthat Kuznets'soriginalcon-

tribution s not rich with theoretical nsight.As inequalityreemerges n the

social sciences as an importantsocialproblem,the analyticalvalue of theU-curve lies more in its theoretical constructsthan its empirical expec-tations.For example,the cases of Korea and Thailandprovideevidence

thatpoliticalmobilizationof the urbanworkingclassmayhaveproceeded

along patternssimilarto those Kuznetswouldhave predicted(albeit at a

much fasterrate).Conceiqaoand Galbraith 2001:139,160)eek a "macro-economic alternative" o currentinequalityliteratureand use Kuznets-

type methodsto explain risinginequality n the developedworld, in the

end hopingfor a "renewedappreciationofthe

depthand

durabilityof

Si-mon Kuznets'sfundamental nsight."Stallingset al. (2000) comparethe

East Asian and Latin American growth-equityexperiences and arguethat the centralcontrast can be explained by the nature of the urban-

izationand industrialization rocess emphasizedby Kuznets.Along these

lines, Korzeniewiczand Moran(2005) recast Kuznets'soriginalcontribu-

tion within a Schumpeterianrameworkandexplorehowthe fundamental

insightsof his researchhelp explainworld-historicalpatternsof inequal-

ity.As Stallingsetal. (2000:106)argue,"Kuznets,ndeed,mayhave had the

economicsof thestoryrighteventhoughempiricaloutcomesacrossregionsandcountriesand withincountriesover time follow no neatpattern."

Recenthistoricalresearchhas also vindicatedKuznets's nsightsabout

the long-term egalitarianeffects of industrialization, specially in the

United Statesand Great Britain.Economic historiansresearchinghe his-

toricaldynamicof the U-curve from the eighteenth centuryonwardhavefound Kuznets'shypothesizedpatternsto be reasonablyaccurate. The

most notable workin this area has been conductedby JeffreyWilliamson

(1991a,b,1997) and Lindert and Williamson(1985). Analyzing the best

available historicaldata on inequalityin Great Britain and the UnitedStates,they findstrongvalidationfor the descendingarc of the U-curve,and some (admittedlymorefragile)evidencefor the early upswing.More

broadly, hey findthat,with the possibleexceptionof Germany, hereis a

cleartrend towardconvergingncomesin the twentiethcentury or a largenumberof industrializedountries.16

As Williamson 1991a:34)s quickto point out, however,"no unam-

biguoustheory of the Kuznets Curveemergesfrom... history."The his-

toricalevidenceisadmittedly ragile,

andeven whereKuznets-type urves

16Note,however, hatwhile Williamson indssupport or Kuznetscurves,he does not fullysupportKuznets's xplanation f whytheyexist.Whilehis basicmodelhasmuch n commonwith Kuznets's ramework, e tends to downplay he social-political actorsthat Kuznets

arguedwouldaccount or the long-run galitarianendency.



234 Moran

are found,Kuznetsianprocessesoften are not. S6derberg(1991), for ex-

ample,showsthat the U-curvedoes apply n principle o the Swedishcase,

yet attributes hepattern o the role of inflationrather hansectoral mbal-

ances. Dumke (1991) similarlyarguesfor a GermanU-curvepattern,buthis explanations rootedin the processesof urbanization.Economichisto-

riansanalyzingotherpartsof the world have found non-U-curvepatterns.

Japan,forexample, s often cited ashavingmissedtheinvertedU-curveal-

togetherduring ts processof industrialization.Minami(1998:39) uggeststhat"therelativelyequaldistributionncontemporary apanwas not a nat-

uralconsequenceof [historical] conomicgrowth."Thomas(1991)arguesthat industrializationn the Australiancontextwas not associatedwith an

early upswingn

inequalitybut with a continuous

egalitarianrend.

From a historicalperspective,then, the centralfindingis that time

andspacematter,a contextualizationKuznetshimselfmade all along.The

inverted U-curve is probablya somewhat accuraterepresentationof the

development-inequality rajectoryor theAngloAmerican ndustrial evo-

lutionsin the earlynineteenthand twentiethcenturies.But Kuznetsalwaysinsistedthathiswasa historicallybondedconclusion,nota forecast hat the

generalpatternwillbe presentwherever ndustrializationrocessesoccur,or wheneverthey take place. As Williamson(1991b:60)argues,"Lavish

attentionto the Kuznetscurvehas tended to deflect our attentionawayfrom assessingthe distributionalmpact of each country's idiosyncraticpolicies and institutions... [that account] for historicaldepartures romthe Kuznetscurve. The issue is not so much whether the Kuznets curveexists in history,but ratherto understand he forces which accountfor its

presenceor absence."

CONCLUSION: MPLICATIONSFORTHE SOCIOLOGY

OF SOCIAL-SCIENTIFIC NOWLEDGE

In theprecedingpages,I analyzethe historyof anextraordinaryocialscientificargument,and one of the most influential tatementson inequal-ity ever made-Simon Kuznets's nvertedU-curvehypothesis.The historyof Kuznets'stheory is one of shifting interpretationsand appropriationsthroughtime, demonstrating longthe way how the applicability f a setof argumentschangedwith the social and politicalcontextsin which in-

equalitywas conceptualized.A set of conjectures hat the authorhimself

claimedwerebased on "95%speculation"becamea reifiedsocioeconomiclaw, a closed "blackbox,"at a time when the U-curveprovidedan aes-

thetically elegant, empiricallygrounded synthesisof the broad academicand policyconsensusthatprevailed n the developmentalist ra. As such,




the U-curvebecamea foundation tatement n this consensusas anempiri-cal, theoretical,andpoliticalstatementof fact. A widely acceptedargumentthen became contentious,and its existence was paradoxically hallenged

by the veryevidencepreviouslyused to support t, when this larger appa-ratuswas destroyed.In a climateof intellectual ragmentation nd critical

empirical nquiry, he black box was opened.But whatemergedwasnot a

meaningless,discredited heory,butmanyversionsof the "U-curve," ach

interpreted o meansomethingdifferent han the others.That the U-curve

is stillvigorouslydebated and relevant odayreflectsnot onlythe powerof

old blackboxes to remaincompelling,but also the theoreticaland method-

ologicalrichnessof Kuznets'soriginalstudy.The

historyof the U-curve

hypothesishas

implicationsor those in-

terestedin the constructionandprogressionof social-scientific nowledge.

Although, as Randall Collins commentsin the preface to Fuchs'sbook

(1992:xv),the sociology of science has been "in flux" since the 1990s,two general frameworkshave emergedin the discipline: hose imposinga Kuhn-basedapproachand those considering he constructionist spectsof knowledgecreation.Duringthe 1960s and 1970s,Kuhn's(1962)model

wascertainly n vogue, and social scientistsbeganto incorporatehis ideas

despitehis explicitstatementthat social sciencehad not reached the stage

of paradigmaticcience. Hall (1993),for example,contends that Britain's"policyparadigm"ransformation nderThatcheroccurred hrougha pro-cess of "puzzling ut" andpolicy experimentationhat wenton until it pre-

cipitated"a shiftin the locus of authorityoverpolicyandinitiate[d]a wider

contestbetweencompetingparadigms"Hall, 1993:280).Hall'sanalogyto

the Kuhnianmodel has beenwidelycitedbut,as Babb(2001:3)contends, t

begs an importantquestion:"[I]fneoliberalism works'so well,whywasit

not implemented orty yearsbefore?"This is preciselythe point of departurefor the second general ap-

proach,one which emphasizesthe social constructionof knowledge.AsYonay (1998:18) xplains, he goalis "notto showhow 'good'theorieswin,but to documenthow the view of what s 'good' sbeingconstitutedand then

used to resolve debates aboutNature."Scholars n this traditioncontend

thatthe old debate betweenthe internalistsand externalistsn the studyof

scienceis obsoletebecause the elements involvedneverappearas "purelyinternal"or "purelyexternal."They do not deny the role of objectively

gained empiricalevidence,or that there can be good and bad arguments,but they understand hese processesto be contingent.The rise and fall of

the invertedU-curvehypothesis avorsa constructionisteadingof the his-

tory.Intheend,theconceptualizationf theU-curveovertime was as much

aproductof thelargeracademicandpoliticalclimatesas it was a productof

the original deasthemselvesor the empirical"puzzling ut" of evidence.



236 Moran

Thusfar,mostconstructivist esearchhasconcerned he "micro"work-

ingsof scientific esearch-historicalstudiesandethnographic bservationsof the strugglesamongworkingscientists hat drawattentionto the social

processes that shape the content of theirwork (see Knorr-Cetina,1991,Latour,1987; he contributions n Pickering,1992).Yet the storyof the U-curvesupportsrecentefforts to expandthe constructionist pproach romone that focuses on micro-levelanalyseswithin the scientificcommunityto one thatbetterunderstands he sociologyof social-scientific nowledgewhere outcomesmustbe explainedbywidersocial andpolitical actors hat

historicallycondition its production.This approachwould seek to prob-lematizeboth sides of thistwo-waystreet: hemechanismsbywhichsocial-

politicalcontexts affect the

productionof social-scientific

knowledgeand

the waysinwhichthisknowledge s simultaneously ppropriatedndinter-

pretedin social-politicalcontexts.Indeed,this is aweighty ntellectual ask,but it is in thissense thatthe vein of recent researchcarriedout, forexam-

ple, by Babbs(2001),Escobar(1995), RueschemeyerandSkocpol (1996),andYonay(1998)shouldbecome morecommonplace.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I amgrateful o JamesRule, IanRoxborough,GiovanniArrighi,andPatricioKorzeniewicz orprovidingvaluable ntellectualnsightsatvarious

stagesof thisproject,with the usual caveat thattheybearno responsibilityforthe endproduct. wantalso to thankthe anonymous eviewers ortheircarefulreadingof an earlierversion,and especiallythe editor and staffof SociologicalForum,for the time andenergy they spenton thispaper'sbehalf.

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