ABSTRACT
The level of inequality in the world has been steadily rising over the past decades, creating anxiety amongst economists and policy makers about the potential effect it has on economic growth, if any. It is therefore arguably one of the most important topics today given that improvement of welfare of all citizens is the main goal of all governments. The situation is even more pertinent for most developing countries especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa which are trying to eliminate poverty and attain an emergent level of development. This paper proves that income inequality negatively affects growth in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries by using a time series cross-sectional data approach for the period 1995 to 2010. Such a finding implies that developing economies like those of the SADC could face greater hurdles in trying to become emergent and hence stalling their ability to improve the welfare of their citizens if better policies that ensure redistribution of wealth and hence sustainable growth are not put in place. Factors significantly negatively impacting the SADC’s growth include; income inequality and exchange rates. On the other hand the factor significantly associated with positive growth in the SADC is mineral rents.
Keywords: GDP growth, Inequality, SADC