Building Bridges: Reducing inequalities through government intervention

This paper evaluated the efficacy of social measures implemented by the government since 2017 to bolster household purchasing power, mitigate poverty, and curtail income inequality. To this end, a microsimulation model was constructed utilising microdata from the 2017 Household Budget Survey (HBS). Subsequently, a nowcasting exercise was conducted to extrapolate trends until 2023. The Gini coefficient exhibited a significant reduction. As per estimates by Statistics Mauritius in 2017, the Gini coefficient stood at 0.392. By 2022, MS estimated a Gini coefficient of 0.304, signifying a noteworthy improvement in income distribution.