Does economic growth reduce multidimensional poverty? Evidence from low- and middle-income countries

•We estimate the growth elasticity of multidimensional poverty using a dataset of 91 low and middle-income countries between 1990 and 2018.•We employ-two novel, individual multidimensional poverty indices, which include three important dimensions: education, work, and health.•The empirical analysis indicates that a 10% increase in GDP decreases multidimensional poverty by approximately 4–5%.•Multidimensional poverty has had a more pronounced reaction to economic growth in recent periods and in countries with lower initial poverty.•The elasticity of income poverty to growth is between five and eight times higher than that of multidimensional poverty.