Poverty growth in Scandinavian countries: A Sen multi-decomposition

We show in this paper that the growth rate of the Sen index is multi-decomposable, that is, decomposable simultaneously by subgroups and income sources. The multi-decomposition of the poverty growth yields respectively: the growth rate of the poverty incidence (poverty rate) decomposed by subgroups, the growth rate of the poverty depth (poverty gap ratios) decomposed by sources and subgroups, and the growth rate of inequality decomposed by sources and subgroups. We demonstrate that the multi-decomposition is not unique. It is mainly dependent on poverty lines defined on the space of income sources. An application to Scandinavian countries shows that poverty lines based on non-correlation between the income sources imply serious risks of underestimation of the contribution levels of the different components of the global poverty growth. The main contribution of our paper is to pay particular attention to the poverty growth and its source components in order to avoid underestimation of poverty growth.     

Impact of education and health on poverty reduction: Monetary and non-monetary evidence from Fiji

Fiji signed the United Nations 2015 target of halving extreme poverty from its 1990 level, but like many developing countries it is facing challenges in meeting this goal. This paper presents the economic modelling using Fiji's Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2002/03 dataset to examine the economic and social factors crucial for poverty reduction. Two hypotheses are tested: first, we estimate the monetary effects of education at the aggregate and disaggregated returns to education (primary, secondary, tertiary levels) and by income quartiles, and second, test the non-monetary education and health factors as channels of impact promulgated as effects against poverty prevalence. The monetary results indicate that all income quartile households (i.e. lowest to highest) benefit from additional skills obtained through formal education. While those at the lowest income quartile in particular benefit the most from formal education, however it cannot sustainably prevent people with only primary education from falling into poverty. The results for non-monetary models show that education has a positive and significant influence on the tendency of the people to engage in health prevention activities and in acquiring good housing facilities.     

Missing poor and income mobility

Higher mortality among the poor prevents standard poverty measures from quantifying the actual extent of old-age poverty. Whereas existing attempts to deal with the ”missing poor” problem assume the absence of income mobility and assign to the prematurely dead a fictitious income equal to the last income enjoyed, this paper relaxes that assumption in order to study the impact of income mobility on the size of the missing poor bias. We use data on poverty above age 60 in 12 countries from the EU-SILC database, and we compare standard poverty rates with the hypothetical poverty rates that would have prevailed if (i) all individuals, whatever their income, had enjoyed the same survival conditions, and if (ii) all individuals within the same income class had been subject to the same income mobility process. Taking income mobility into account has unequal effects on corrected poverty measures across countries, and, hence, affects international comparisons in terms of old-age poverty.     

收入增长和收入分配对城市减贫的影响

本文基于对贫困的分解,运用贫困弹性的动态特征,选取《中国统计年鉴》相关年份城市住户分组数据,深入分析收入增长和收入分配因素对中国1991-2009年间城市绝对贫困和相对贫困的影响。结果表明:(1)高速的经济增长对我国城市绝对贫困率下降起决定性作用,但收入分配恶化对城市相对贫困率上升有显著影响。(2)收入水平越高,则收入因素对城市减贫的促进作用越强,且分配因素所引起的贫困变动越大;收入分配越不平等,则收入因素对城市减贫的促进作用越弱,且分配因素所引起的贫困变动越小。因此,我国今后的城市减贫,应在继续保持经济较快增长的同时,以改善收入分配不平等为重点。     

Not by growth alone: The role of the distribution of income in regional diversity in poverty reduction

This study examines the role of the distribution of income in determining the responsiveness of poverty to income growth and changes in income inequality using panel data of 58 developing countries for the period 1980-1998. We show that the large cross-regional variation in the capacity of income growth to reduce poverty, i.e. the income elasticity, is largely explained by differences in the initial distribution of income and present region and time specific estimates of the income and Gini elasticities of poverty. We find that the income elasticity of poverty in the mid-1990s equals −1.31 on average and ranges from −0.71 for Sub-Saharan Africa to −2.27 for the Middle East and North Africa, and that the Gini elasticity of poverty equals 0.80 on average and ranges from 0.01 in South Asia to 1.73 in Latin America. Furthermore we show that while differing income growth rates account for most of the regional diversity in poverty trends, the additional impact of differences across regions in rates of inequality change and income and inequality elasticities of poverty is almost always significant and far too large to be ignored, most notably so in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.     

收入增长和分配对我国农村减贫的影响-方法、特征与证据

改革开放30年来,在农村居民收入水平快速增长的大背景下,农村减贫进程却表现出明显的波动性和不一致性。基于此,本文在贫困分解的基础上,运用贫困弹性的动态特征,从理论和实证的角度探讨了收入增长和收入分配对贫困减少的影响,解释上述问题。文章发现:(1)人均收入水平越高,贫困越有可能和收入不平等联系在一起;(2)收入不平等越严重的地区,贫困对收入不平等的反应越迟钝;(3)1998年是我国农村反贫困性质发生改变的拐点。文章建议,今后农村反贫困政策的重点应从以促进收入增长的开发式扶贫向以改善收入分配为重点的社会保护式扶贫政策转变。     

经济增长、产业结构与农村减贫——基于省际面板数据的实证分析

在经济增长与减贫关系问题上,大量的实证研究仅仅用经济增长以及伴随增长过程的收入分配状态作为解释变量,其结论与现实的契合性不够稳定。通过在计量模型中加入产业结构、农业生产条件、农业扶贫与发展政策等关键性的中间变量,并采用跨越"八七扶贫攻坚"期间和新世纪"农村扶贫开发"两个发展时期的省际面板数据,实证分析表明经济增长在农村减贫中具有重要地位,城乡收入差距扩大对农村减贫具有显著的负效应。与现有的大量实证研究结论不同,本研究表明不同产业在经济发展的不同阶段对农村减贫的影响是不同的,三次产业发展对农村贫困的影响发生了一定程度的逆转。因此,新时期反贫困战略也应做出相应的调整。     

经济增长与农村反贫困

本文利用中国家庭收入项目(CHIP)调查数据,估计了1988-2002年期间的中国农村绝对贫困、收入差距的变化趋势及收入增长和收入分配变化对农村贫困的影响.根据CHIP调查数据所绘制的贫困发生曲线表明,不论把绝对贫困线确定在哪里,在该时期内中国农村贫困都在显著下降.贫困指数分解和面板数据回归结果均显示收入增长是导致贫困下降的主要原因.     

The Elasticity of Poverty with respect to Sectoral Growth in Africa

The African continent has grown by more than 4 percent yearly on average during the past decade. However, the link between this remarkable growth rate and poverty reduction is neither obvious nor simple. This paper focuses on the elasticity of poverty with respect to GDP growth at the sectoral level and takes into account the fact that economic growth may affect poverty directly as well as indirectly through sectoral labor share intensity. It develops a methodology that sheds light on the contribution of sectoral growth to poverty reduction country‐by‐country in Africa, guiding policy recommendations. As the composition of growth matters at least as much as its overall intensity, it is key to identify the sectors that have the strongest impact on poverty reduction and unleash their potential; if growth happens to concentrate in sectors with scarce pro‐poor potential, like commodity‐driven growth, redistributive strategies are necessary to compensate the weak effect on poverty.     

The distributional impact of public services when needs differ

Despite a broad consensus on the need to take into account the value of public services in distributional analysis, there is little reliable evidence on how inclusion of such non-cash income actually affects poverty and inequality estimates. In particular, the equivalence scales applied to cash income are not necessarily appropriate when including non-cash income, because the receipt of public services is likely to be associated with particular needs. In this paper, we propose a theory-based framework designed to provide a coherent evaluation of the distributional impact of local public services. The valuation of public services, identification of target groups, allocation of expenditures to target groups, and adjustment for differences in needs are derived from a model of local government spending behaviour. Using Norwegian data from municipal accounts and administrative registers we find that the inclusion of non-cash income reduces income inequality by about 15% and poverty rates by almost one-third. However, adjusting for differences in needs for public services across population subgroups offsets about half the inequality reduction and some of the poverty decrease.     

When is growth pro-poor? Evidence from a panel of countries

Growth is pro-poor if the poverty measure of interest falls. According to this definition there are three potential sources of pro-poor growth: (a) a high growth rate of average incomes; (b) a high sensitivity of poverty to growth in average incomes; and (c) a poverty-reducing pattern of growth in relative incomes. I empirically decompose changes in poverty in a sample of developing countries during the 1980s and 1990s into these three components. In the medium- to long-run, most of the variation in changes in poverty can be attributed to growth in average incomes, suggesting that policies and institutions that promote broad-based growth should be central to the pro-poor growth agenda. Most of the remainder of the variation in changes in poverty is due to poverty-reducing patterns of growth in relative incomes, rather than differences in the sensitivity of poverty to growth in average incomes. Cross-country evidence provides relatively little guidance as to the policies and institutions that promote these other sources of pro-poor growth.     

Vulnerability Orderings for Expected Poverty Indices

Vulnerability to poverty refers to the risk of an individual or household falling below the poverty line. A partial vulnerability to poverty ordering is defined to indicate when a situation characterized by uncertainty means that people are more vulnerable to poverty than in another situation. The family of expected poverty indices used in this context contains versions under vulnerability of many well‐known poverty indices. The ordering resembles the Hardy et al. result on the Lorenz partial ordering. A separate ordering for the expected income gap ratio is also investigated. First‐order stochastic dominance is used to indicate when the expected value of the censored returns from the states increases.     

Self-rated economic welfare in Russia

Most of those Russian adults who feel that they are poor are not classified as such in the poverty statistics, and most of those who are classified as poor don't feel that way. We study the determinants of peoples’ perceptions of their economic welfare in an unusually rich socioeconomic survey. While income is a highly significant predictor, subjective economic welfare is influenced by many other factors including health, education, employment, assets, relative income in the area of residence and expectations about future welfare. Insights are obtained into how objective data should be weighted in assessing economic welfare.     

Contributions of Longitudinal Data to Poverty Measurement in Australia*

Chronic poverty is of greater social consequence than transitory poverty but its measurement requires longitudinal data. This article uses six waves of data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey to explore the extent to which longitudinal data contribute to what is known about poverty from cross‐section data. We find an imperfect correspondence between people’s annual poverty status and chronic poverty status. Consequently, policies that aim to reduce chronic poverty using means‐tested benefits may be partially misdirected if beneficiaries are identified using annual income. Furthermore, some households experiencing chronic poverty may fall through the safety net.     

A Decomposition Analysis of Regional Poverty in Russia

The paper applies a new decomposition technique to the study of variations in poverty across the regions of Russia. The procedure, which is based on the Shapley value in cooperative game theory, allows the deviation in regional poverty levels from the all‐Russia average to be attributed to three proximate sources: per capita income, inequality, and local prices. Contrary to expectation, regional poverty variations turn out to be due more to differences in inequality across regions than to differences in real income per capita. However, when real income per capita is split into nominal income and price components, differences in nominal incomes emerge as more important than either inequality or price effects for the majority of regions.     

The economic importance of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) for livelihood maintenance of rural west African communities: A case study from northern Benin

Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) contribute significantly to a rural household's livelihood in the African semi-arid tropics. This study examines the income from NTFPs and the dependency on these of different socio-economic groups in Northern Benin. Using survey data from 230 households of two villages, we firstly compared incomes of five different ethnic groups being differentiated by their traditional source of livelihood and regional provenance. Secondly, we investigated disparities between three income groups. On average, income from NTFPs accounted for 39% of total household income and had a strong equalizing effect on it. However, the economic relevance of NTFPs differs between households: Poorer households are relatively more dependent on NTFPs in order to fulfill basic needs than wealthier households. However, the latter extract more NTFPs in quantitative terms and have significantly higher cash returns than poorer ones. This is mainly due to a significant greater land holding. Moreover, our study revealed that net income from NTFPs reflects traditional sources of livelihoods of different ethnic groups. In conclusion, both conservation and development strategies should take into consideration the socio-economic context of different beneficiaries of savanna woodland resources in order to apply appropriate measures to poverty reduction.     

A Bayesian Measure of Poverty in the Developing World

We propose a new methodology to revise the international poverty line (IPL) after Ravallion et al . (2009) using the same database, but augmented with new variables to take into account social inclusion in the definition of poverty along the lines of Atkinson and Bourguignon (2001). We provide an estimation of the world income distribution and of the corresponding number of poor people in the developing world. Our revised IPL is based on an augmented two‐regime model estimated using a Bayesian approach, which allows us to take into account uncertainty when defining the reference group of countries where the IPL applies. The influence of weighting by population is discussed, as well as the IPL revision proposed in Deaton (2010). We also discuss the impact of using the new 2011 PPP and the recent IPL revision made by the World Bank.     

Do microfinance institutions fulfil their promise? Evidence from cross-country data

The concept of microfinance promises poverty reduction and economic growth. We empirically challenge this economic and social promise in an attempt to prove its fulfilment. Our multivariate regressions of economic development variables such as per capita gross national income based on PPP converted to international dollars (GNI per capita PPP), GDP growth, as well as gross capital formation and labour participation rate against specific microfinance institutions’ (MFI) variables show that the success and performance of MFIs significantly influence economic development. Microfinance directly influences economic growth through the value that MFI performance adds to purchasing power. An indirect impact comes from an improvement in capital accumulation and employment rates. These insights are valuable as the interdependencies between microfinance and economic development that this article verifies offer new and progressive insights into purposeful action that can be taken to stimulate economic development and growth. Targeted development programmes as well as socially responsible investments can be applied in developing economies in order to strengthen their growth and alleviate poverty.     

The impact of financial development,economic growth,income inequality on poverty: evidence from India

This paper examines the impact of financial development, economic growth and income inequality on poverty in India from 1970 to 2015 by employing the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing procedure. The findings reveal a robust long-run relationship between financial development, economic growth, inequality and poverty. Results show that financial development and economic growth help in poverty reduction in India, whereas income inequality and inflation aggravate poverty. Empirical evidence of the Granger-causality test supports the presence of unidirectional causality from financial development and economic growth to poverty. Moreover, bidirectional causality exists between inequality and poverty. The present study provides evidence on which the policymakers may proceed with detailed investigation of how specific financial sector policies and interventions can be deployed as effective instruments for achieving favorable economic growth and income distribution. The study recommends that policies geared toward increasing financial development and economic growth should be adopted to reduce the high level of poverty and inequality currently prevailing in India.     

CHINESE POVERTY: ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF ALTERNATIVE ASSUMPTIONS

This paper investigates how estimates of the extent and trend of consumption poverty in China between 1990 and 2004 vary as a result of alternative plausible assumptions concerning the poverty line and estimated levels of consumption. Our methodology focuses on the following sources of variation: purchasing power exchange rates (used to convert an international poverty line), alternative levels and distributions of private incomes, alternative estimates of the propensity to consume of different income groups, and alternative spatial and temporal price indices. We report national, urban and rural poverty estimates corresponding to distinct assumptions. It is widely believed that substantial poverty reduction took place in China in the 1990s, and we find this conclusion to be largely robust to the choice of assumptions, although estimates of the extent of Chinese poverty, and therefore of world poverty, in any year are greatly influenced by this choice.