THE SENSITIVITY OF INTERNATIONAL POVERTY COMPARISONS

Using data from the Luxembourg Income Study, I study the sensitivity of cross-national income poverty comparisons to the method in which poverty is measured. Absolute poverty comparisons that keep the purchasing power at the poverty line constant across countries lead to conclusions that differ from relative poverty comparisons in which the real value of the poverty line varies with average income. The absolute poverty ranking of countries also varies as the real value of the poverty line is lowered. Cross-national differences in household characteristics are largely irrelevant in explaining poverty differences.     

RELATIVE INEQUALITY AND POVERTY IN GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES USING ALTERNATIVE EQUIVALENCE SCALES

We use data from the Luxembourg Income Study to show the sensitivity of measures of relative economic well-being of persons in the U.S. and Germany using official equivalence scales and consumption-based country-specific equivalence scales developed for the two countries. Overall inequality and poverty levels are found not to be sensitive to the equivalence scale used. However, the official German equivalence scale yields quite different results from the others with respect to the relative income and poverty levels of vulnerable groups within the population, especially older single people.     

INTRODUCTION OF THE SNA INTO THE OFFICIAL STATISTICS OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES

The work on the introduction of the elements of the SNA into the official statistical practice of the former U.S.S.R. began in 1988 when estimates of the GDP using conversion keys were prepared. In 1991 the decision was made to implement the entire SNA gradually on the basis of the international standards. The methodology of compilation of the main accounts was formulated by the Statistical Committcc of the C.I.S. with the assistance of the OECD. It originally drew on the ESA with introduction of elements of the revised SNA and adaption to specific economic processes in the country. It required solution of a number of conceptual and statistical problems referring to the treatment, allocation and valuation of selected activities. The estimates of the main accounts were made for the former U.S.S.R. by sectors and by industries for 1988–90. This project has provided the basis for further work on implementation of the SNA in C.I.S. countries.     

TRUE HOUSEHOLD EQUIVALENCE SCALES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE POOR IN THE UNITED STATES

In this paper we deal with the question of which measures of economic well-being are adequate to identify those groups of households in the U.S. whose economic conditions justify public concern and assistance. We derive a utility based measure of economic well-being from the estimation of a complete set of consumer demand equations. The demand system is Lluch's Extended Linear Expenditure System (Lluch, 1973). Household characteristics are incorporated using the scaling method proposed by Barten (1966). Using the welfare indicator derived, we study the composition of the poorest part of the population, using data from the 1972–73 Consumer Expenditure Survey. We compare our results with those obtained using various other welfare indicators, including the official U.S. poverty line. We show that using different family composition adjustments significantly and systematically affects just who are considered to be at the bottom of the welfare distribution. We finally suggest that program designers therefore can improve their target efficiency by carefully selecting from among the acceptable indices of welfare when defining program eligibility.     

THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY AND THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

In 1962 an article by Mr. Angelos Angelopoulos, professor at the Pantheios School of Political Sciences (Athens), entitled "The Third World, the European Common Market and the West", was published in the Annals . In that article the author described, with the freedom which is by tradition allowed to all contributors to the Annals , the fears and anxieties of the newly developing countries regarding the European Economic Community.
In the present article Mr. André Marchal, lecturer at the Faculty of Law and Economics of the University of Paris, discusses the same problem with the same freedom and a viewpoint radically different from that of Professor Angelopoulos.     

THE NON-CONSTANCY OF EQUIVALENCE SCALES

Comparisons of households of differing composition are usually achieved through the use of equivalence scales. It is well known that the choice of scales can have considerable impact on the conclusions drawn from studies of welfare and poverty. There is a considerable literature on the theoretical issues relating to equivalence scales, but applied work on income distribution and related areas almost invariably takes scales to be constant irrespective of income. This paper focuses on the relation of scale to income, by applying theoretical analysis to some simple household types. The conclusion is that scales are not constant and that current practice should be changed.     

THE OPTIMAL MINIMUM WAGE FOR POVERTY MINIMIZATION

This paper characterizes the poverty minimizing minimum wage, and shows how it varies as productivity, inequality and market competitiveness change. We show that the optimal minimum wage is equal to the competitive wage only in special cases. In general, the former is higher than the latter. Thus, poverty minimization does not coincide with employment maximization. We also show that the optimal minimum wage always rises with productivity and, under certain conditions, falls with competitiveness and inequality. Furthermore, the higher the competitiveness and inequality, the more the optimal wage rises with productivity.     

新城市主义社区规划与设计的几大法则

新城市主义是美国1990年代促进邻里和地区健康发展、提高生活质量的思潮和运动,对当今北美以及其他某些地区的城市建设产生了重大影响。文章将阐明新城市主义的主要理论框架,并探求其在社区规划与设计方面的主要法则,从中寻求对当前中国城市社区规划与设计的启示与借鉴。     

湘西武陵山贫困地区脱贫与发展

湘西武陵山贫困地区是国家重点扶持的18个集中连片贫困地区之一和少数民族聚居区,加快这一地区脱贫与发展,对缩小这一地区与全国的差距,保障国民经济可持续发展,实现国家的长治久安有重要意义.本文从分析这一地区贫困现状入手,研究了贫困的原因和面临的机遇与挑战,提出了加快脱贫与发展的规划设想与对策.     

ESCAPING POVERTY THROUGH WORK: THE PROBLEM OF LOW EARNINGS CAPACITY IN THE UNITED STATES, 1973–88

This paper documents the changes in earnings capacity poverty that occurred between 1973 and 1088. Families are "Earnings Capacity Poor" if they are unable to generate enough income to lift them out of poverty, even if all working-age adults in the family work full-time, year-round. Data from the March 1974 and March 1989 Current Population Surveys indicate that earnings capacity poverty increased more rapidly than official poverty. Much of this increase can be attributed to the rise in earnings capacity poverty among whites, intact families, and family heads with more than a high school diploma. Most alarming, the percentage of children in earnings capacity poor families is considerably higher than it is among persons over eighteen; in 1988, nearly 15 percent of children under six lived in families that could not have escaped poverty even if the adults in their family were working and earning at their full capacity levels.     

ON THE EQUIVALENCE OF ALTERNATIVE MEASURES OF THE ELASTICITY OF SUBSTITUTION

This paper provides a necessary and sufficient condition for the equivalence of three alternative measures of the elasticity of factor substitution: the Allen-Uzawa partial elasticity, the shadow elasticity and the general two-factor two-price elasticity.     

PUBLIC SECTOR STATISTICS FOR THE UNITED KINGDOM

This paper describes the composition of the public sector in the United Kingdom and traces the development and contribution to the economy of the three main sub-sectors-central government, local government and public corporations—over the past thirty years. Relevant data for output, employment, fixed capital formation and national wealth set the public sector into perspective with the economy as a whole and illustrate how its share of human and other resources has changed over the years. While all four measures show the public sector share of the total to have been around 30 percent in 1980, historically the changes have moved very differently. The slow, but fairly steady, increase in the share of employment and output contrasts with very marked changes in the other two measures. Although public sector fixed investment nearly doubled in real terms between 1950 and 1980 its share of total investment declined from 48 to 31 percent, a much smaller share being taken by dwellings, electricity supply and the railways. In terms of the share of national wealth the public sector moved from a state of indebtedness to the rest of the economy in the fifties and sixties to a position of holding nearly one third of the value of tangible and financial assets in the late seventies. A small part of the paper considers the international dimension, but because few other countries use the concept of a public sector, this section examines only the relationship between total tax revenue and GDP in a number of countries and employment in general government. The problems of determining the boundary of the public and private sectors occurs most frequently at the interface between public corporations and private enterprises; the rules for deciding classification are set out in so far as they can be specified. The last sections of the paper put the statistics into their policy context and consider the value of public sector aggregates. The conclusion is that a general case cannot be made to justify assembling public sector aggregates for all countries; the need will be determined by the economic policies being pursued in a particular country. Although the United Kingdom gives considerable prominence to a public sector financial aggregate, the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement, the functions of the public corporations and the rest of the public sector are so disparate that consolidated accounts for the public sector are no longer prepared.     

ANTIDUMPING POLICY IN THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY: POLITICAL DISCRETION OR TECHNICAL DETERMINATION

This paper demonstrates the prominent role of antidumping laws as an instrument of endogenous trade policy in the EC. In contrast with the U.S. where anti-dumping decisions are largely subject to technical determination and trade barriers result from protectionist rules, the EC application of antidumping laws provides protection through administrative discretion and political influence on administrators. Whereas political influence seems to have increased over time in the U.S., the results of our empirical analysis of the EC antidumping decisions in the 1980 to 1990 period indicate that it has been curbed by the increased formalization of the antidumping investigation in the EC in this period. The estimation results show, however, that the tightening impact of each of the three institutional changes during this period faded within two years.     

COHABITATION AND THE MEASUREMENT OF CHILD POVERTY

We use 1990 U.S. Census of Population data to calculate what poverty rates would have been if cohabitors were treated in the same manner as married couples. We find that the official treatment of cohabiting partners as separate family units overstated the extent of poverty in 1989 among all children by about three percent. Only about 11 percent of the observed rise in child poverty between 1969 and 1989 would be eliminated if the Census Bureau made this change in its definition of the family. We estimate a logistic regression model of the likelihood that poor, cohabiting families with children would be reclassified as non-poor if the cohabitor's income were included in family income.     

DEVELOPMENT OF AN ALGORITHM FOR THE COMPILATION OF NATIONAL ACCOUNTS AND RELATED SYSTEMS OF STATISTICS*

The present article includes a proposal for a national accounts algorithm to be applied in the computerization of the national accounts compilation process. While aiming at the estimation and reconciliation of data from different statistical sources, it is based on the application of a linear programming technique applied to a system of identities and inequalities that define the accounting and analytical relations between the data categories of a national accounting framework. The technique is flexible in the sense that it can be used with any configuration of available statistical sources and data requirements of the national accounts. The algorithm is illustrated graphically with help of a simple example and thereafter applied to an extended but still simple national accounting scheme for Suriname with data for 1965 that was compiled by the author many years ago. As the present study is only a first step in the development of the algorithm, more work is needed to make it operational and the last section of the article includes suggestions about the direction of that further work.