Global poverty has fallen dramatically over the last two centuries, and the fall has intensified in recent decades, raising hopes that it could be eliminated within the next 50 years. As industrialization, specialization, and trade raised economic growth and living standards in Western Europe and the European offshoots in the 19th century, much of the rest of the world also started growing rapidly after 1950. Poverty reduction, however, has been very uneven across countries. Since 1980, China alone accounted for most of the world