This study, first, investigates how much economic growth is required to offset the adverse effect

of an increase in inequality on extreme poverty for El Salvador and Guatemala. This trade-off between inequality and growth is quantified using the inequality-growth trade-off index procedure (IGTI). It measures how much growth in income will be required to offset a 1% increase in inequality, with extreme poverty remaining unchanged. Second, focusing on the elasticity of extreme poverty with respect economic growth at the sectoral level, the study establishes the direct dynamic elasticity of poverty with respect to tourism development. Coefficient estimates are determined by the two stage least square procedure. In phase two, coefficient estimates are determined by the fully modified least square procedure. This study uses El Salvador and Guatemala official time series data.



The IGTI is greater for Guatemala (nearly 2.832) than El Salvador (1.481). Focusing on Guatemala, it means thatan increase of 1% in the Gini index will require an economic growth rate of nearly 2.83% in order that the incidence of extreme poverty remains unchanged. Results clearly suggest that a strategy of inequality reduction will have greater payoff for poverty reduction in Guatemala than a similar strategy for the case of El Salvador. The contribution of El Salvador tourism (-0.484) to extreme poverty reduction is relatively higher than the corresponding measure for agriculture (-0.313). The same can be said about Guatemala tourism (-0.581) and agriculture (-0.264). Therefore, sector growth having the highest impact on poverty reduction is country specific. Assuming investments similar to those of past years, it would take a much smaller investment in tourism to achieve a substantially higher rate of extreme poverty reduction in El Salvador and Guatemala. These methods provided insights into developing targeted investment policies and strategies to achieve higher rates of poverty reduction.

Economic growth, inequality and poverty: Tourism dynamics in Central American countries

Previous research has sought to explain the rise of right-wing populist leaders in terms of the evolutionary framework of dominance and prestige. In this framework, dominance is defined as high social rank acquired via coercion and fear, and prestige is defined as high social rank acquired via competence and admiration. Previous studies have shown that right-wing populist leaders are rated as more dominant than non-populist leaders, and right-wing populist/dominant leaders are favoured in times of economic uncertainty and intergroup conflict. In this paper, we explore and critique this application of dominance–prestige to politics. First, we argue that the dominance–prestige framework, originally developed to explain inter-personal relationships within small-scale societies characterised by face-to-face interaction, does not straightforwardly extend to large-scale democratic societies which have frequent anonymous interaction and complex ingroup–outgroup dynamics. Second, we show that economic uncertainty and intergroup conflict predict a preference not only for dominant leaders, but also for prestigious leaders. Third, we show that perceptions of leaders as dominant or prestigious are not fixed, and depend on the political ideology of the perceiver: people view leaders who share their ideology as prestigious, and those who oppose their ideology as dominant, whether that ideology is liberal or conservative. Fourth, we show that political ideology is a stronger predictor than economic uncertainty of preference for Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US Presidential Election, contradicting previous findings that link Trump's success to economic uncertainty. We conclude by suggesting that, if economic uncertainty does not directly affect preferences for right-wing populist leaders, other features of their discourse such as higher emotionality might explain their success.

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