Revisiting the Nexus Between Private Investment and Poverty Reduction: A Systematic Literature Review
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61255/jeemba.v4i5.1690Keywords:
Private Investment, Poverty Reduction, Inclusive Growth, Prisma, Systematic Literature ReviewAbstract
Purpose - This review examines how private investment is associated with poverty outcomes and clarifies the conditions under which investment may generate inclusive welfare gains. It synthesizes the cited evidence while explicitly separating direct empirical evidence from contextual and theoretical sources.
Design/methodology/approach - A systematic-review framework guided by PRISMA 2020 is used for English-language peer-reviewed journal evidence published within the stated 2020–2025 eligibility window. Scopus is treated as the principal indexing source, while ScienceDirect and Google Scholar are supplementary discovery interfaces. Direct synthesis is restricted to empirical studies in which a private-investment exposure and a poverty outcome can be identified; mixed public–private exposures are treated as contextual unless the private component is separately estimable, and non-empirical reviews are excluded from direct evidence. The source material available for this revision does not contain a verified database-specific search log, exact search dates, a documented deduplication procedure, a complete screening log, or a finalized study-level appraisal matrix. Accordingly, the previously reconstructed PRISMA counts are not presented here as definitive results.
Finding/Results - The cited empirical evidence is heterogeneous, and this revised manuscript does not claim that poverty-reducing findings are more frequent until a verified study-level classification is available. The studies discussed in the manuscript include poverty-reducing, null or weak, mixed or conditional, and spatial or multidimensional relationships. Where mechanisms are explicitly estimated, the cited evidence includes human-capital transmission and spatial spillovers; economic-growth mediation is also reported in mixed-investment evidence. Employment, wages, supplier linkages, infrastructure, and financial inclusion are treated as conceptual or indirectly inferred pathways unless a source study directly tests them.
Originality/Value - The revised synthesis distinguishes investment type and evidence role, separates empirically tested mechanisms from conceptual pathways, and moderates policy implications according to the strength and directness of the evidence. It also makes explicit the documentation required for a fully auditable PRISMA review.
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