Forest incomes and rural livelihoods in Chiradzulu District, Malawi

This paper examines forest income among rural dwellers in one of Malawi's most densely populated districts, Chiradzulu. 160 households were interviewed in two sites, only 20 km apart, purposely selected on the basis of access to a forest reserve. People are extremely poor, with 97% having incomes of less than 1 USD/day. Forest income constitutes around 15% of total income; only non-farm income (47%) and agriculture (28%) rank higher. The poorest segment depends more on forest income than the least poor group, but the medium income group exhibits the highest dependence. Fuelwood constitutes the major source of such income followed by fodder. The incomes mainly support current consumption. People with better access to the forest reserve have higher total income, forest income, and relative forest income. As revealed through a Gini-coefficient analysis, forest resources have an important income equalizing effect across rural households. A particular group of resource poor farmers (8.1% of sample), with little access to agricultural land and a high representation of female heads, derives an average of 65% of their income from the forest. An important policy lesson is that restricting people's access to forest resources can have substantial effects on household livelihoods and welfare, and would serve to increase income inequalities in the area. Livelihood researchers should now recognize the substantial income from forest resources.     

Market dynamics, dynamic resource management and environmental policy in the context of (strong) sustainability

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between market dynamics, dynamic resource management and environmental policy. In contrast to static market entry games, this paper draws attention to the effects of market dynamics on resource dynamics et vice versa, because (1) we show that feedback processes are necessary for obtaining a better understanding of what drives the dynamics between the evolution of common-pool resources and the number of harvesters and more importantly, (2) this analysis provides an environment discussing sustainability in an appropriate inasmuch dynamic way. The paper makes the following points: based on a co-evolutionary model, which incorporates resource and market dynamics simultaneously, it is shown that an increasing number of harvesters does not necessarily imply a lower stock of the common-pool resource in the long run. Further it is shown that a tax-scheme establish an output-sharing solution for coping with the overuse of common-pool resources. This results is in contrast to the prevailing literature, which mainly discusses tax-schemes and out-sharing as substitutes rather than as complements for solving the commons-problem. This conclusion holds even if we additionally assume harvesting-cost-reducing technological progress. On the other side if policy interventions ceased, strong resource sustainability in the sense of resource conservation is not possible, given technological progress is a relevant issue.     

Infant mortality,relative income and public policy

Do health outcomes depend on relative income as well as on an individual's absolute level of income? We use infant mortality as a health status indicator and find a significant and positive link between infant mortality and income inequality using cross-national data for 93 countries. Holding constant the income of each of the three poorest quintiles of a country's population, we find that an increase in the income of the upper 20% of the income distribution is associated with higher, not the lower infant mortality. Our results are robust and not just caused by the concave relationship between income and health. The estimates imply a decrease in infant mortality by 1.5% for a one percentage point decrease in the income share of the richest quintile. The overall results are sensitive to public policy: public health care expenditure, educational outcomes, and access to basic sanitation and safe water can explain the inequality–health relationship. Thus, our findings support the hypothesis of public disinvestment in human capital in countries with high income inequality. However, we are not able to determine whether public policy is a confounder or mediator of the relationship between income distribution and health. Relative deprivation caused by the income distance between an individual and the individual's reference group is another possible explanation for a direct effect from income inequality to health.     

Do the Rich Save More? Evidence from Canada

This paper provides new evidence on the long‐standing question of whether more affluent households save a larger fraction of their income. The major difficulty in empirically assessing the relationship between incomes and saving rates is to construct a credible proxy for long‐run income—purged of transitory fluctuations and measurement error. The Canadian Family Expenditure Survey provides us with both unusually good data on savings rates and potential predictors with which we can construct reliable long‐run income proxies. Our empirical analysis suggests that the estimated relationship between saving rates and long‐run incomes is sensitive to the predictor used to proxy long‐run income. Nevertheless, our preferred estimates indicate that, except for poorest households (who simply do not save), saving rates do not differ substantially across predicted long‐run income groups.     

Tax Reform,Sector‐specific Labor Supply and Welfare Effects*

This paper focuses in particular on the 1992 tax reform in Norway. In this reform the top marginal tax rates were cut considerably. We find that the impact on overall labor supply is rather modest, but these modest changes shadow for stronger sectoral changes. The tax reform stimulated the women to shift their labor from the public to the private sector and to work longer hours. A calculation of mean compensated variation, calculated within the framework of a random utility model, shows that the richest households benefited far more from the 1992 tax reform than did the poorest households.     

Socioeconomic Impacts of Public Forest Policies on Heterogeneous Agricultural Households

Nepal has a long history of returning public forests to local people as part of its community forestry programme. In principle the community forestry programme is designed to address both environmental quality and poverty alleviation. However, concern has been expressed that forest policies emphasise environmental conservation, and that this has a detrimental impact on the use of community forests in rural Nepal where households require access to public forest products to sustain livelihoods. To study the effect of government policies on forest use, an economic model of a typical small community of economically heterogeneous households in Nepal was developed. The model incorporates a link between private agriculture and public forest resources, and uses this link to assess the socioeconomic impacts of forest policies on the use of public forests. Socioeconomic impacts were measured in terms of household income, employment and income inequality. The results show that some forest policies have a negative economic impact, and the impacts are more serious than those reported by other studies. This study shows that existing forest policies reduce household income and employment, and widen income inequalities within communities, compared to alternative policies. Certain forest policies even constrain the poorest households?? ability to meet survival needs. The findings indicate that the socioeconomic impacts of public forest policies may be underestimated in developing countries unless household economic heterogeneity and forestry??s contribution to production are accounted for. The study also demonstrates that alternative policies for managing common property resources would reduce income inequalities in rural Nepalese communities and lift incomes and employment to a level where even the poorest households could meet their basic needs.     

TOP INCOMES AND NATIONAL SAVINGS

The relationship between income inequality and national savings is theoretically ambiguous, and past empirical studies have delivered mixed results. We revisit the question using a newly available source of data on inequality: the income share of the richest 10 percent and the richest 1 percent. Combining this with historical data on national savings rates, we are able to investigate the relationship for 11 developed countries over the period 1921–2002. We find no consistent relationship between lagged top income shares and current savings rates, and our standard errors are small enough that we are able to reject more than modest effects in either direction. We view this as suggesting that inequality at the top end of the distribution is not a major driver of national savings rates.     

ECONOMIC TRANSITION AND SUBJECTIVE POVERTY IN URBAN CHINA

Market-oriented economic reforms have substantially changed the Chinese economy. A policy of "allowing some to get rich earlier" clearly has benefited some regions of the country more than others. The purpose of this paper is to investigate changes in regional urban poverty during this period of policy transition. Our approach is based on survey responses to minimum needs (i.e., the "subjective method"). For the richest (Coast) and poorest regions (North West) we find unambiguous declines in poverty between 1988 and 1995 for the registered population. For the Central and South West regions we find that changes in poverty over time are sensitive to both the poverty line selected and the poverty index employed.     

Distributional consequences of asset price inflation in the Euro Area

We study the distributional consequences of housing price, bond price and equity price increases for Euro Area households using data from the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS). The capital gains from bond price and equity price increases turn out to be concentrated among relatively few households, while the median household strongly benefits from housing price increases. The capital gains from bond price increases (relative to household net wealth) do not correlate with household net wealth (or income). Bond price increases thus leave net wealth inequality largely unchanged. In contrast, equity price increases largely benefit the top end of the net wealth (and income) distribution, thus amplify net wealth inequality. Housing price increases display a hump shaped pattern over the net wealth distribution, with the poorest and richest households benefitting least, but there exists considerable heterogeneity across Euro Area countries. The ECB's OMT announcements over the summer of 2012 had quantitatively similar distributional implications as an unexpected loosening of the policy rate by about 175 basis points.     

Can Income Inequality be Affected by the Interaction Between ICTs and Human Capital?: The Evidence from Developing Countries

Income inequality in developing countries remains a major concern. It has been established that higher inequality makes a greater proportion of the population vulnerable to poverty. This paper aimed to analyse the effect of the interaction between ICTs and human capital on income inequality in developing countries. Covering 89 developing countries for the period 2000 to 2015 and based on panel fixed effects instrumental variables technique, this study finds that the interaction between ICTs and human capital reduces overall income inequality on the one hand, and on the other, leads to an increase in the income shares of the poorest, and in particular relative to the richest in developing countries. Furthermore, the interaction between ICTs and human capital reinforces the impact of ICTs on income inequality in developing countries. These results suggest that prioritizing the acquisition of human capital by the poorest, as well as promoting access to and use of ICTs for the benefit of the poorest would significantly contribute to reduce overall income inequality and increase income shares of the poorest in developing countries.

     

The appropriation of endogenously provided common-pool resources

Because game theory suggests that the origin of a common-pool resource should not affect appropriation behavior, experimental studies of appropriation from common-pool resources generally presume resources are exogenously provided. However, behavioral economic research indicates that the origin of a resource may affect the use of that resource. We investigate the potential role of resource origin by considering the appropriation of a common-pool resource after users have determined its productive capacity through contributions. Results indicate that resource origin does not significantly influence aggregate appropriation levels but that endogenous resource provision leads to individual strategic behavior.     

Do natural resources help or hinder development? Resource abundance,dependence, and the role of institutions

The resource curse literature presents conflicting evidence on the relationship between natural resources and development. We evaluate the direct effect of resources on developmental outcomes vis-à-vis their indirect effect through the weakening of political institutions using a 3SLS instrumental variable setup that simultaneously estimates development outcomes and institutions. We find that resource abundance and resource dependence affect development outcomes through different channels. While resource abundance generally has a direct positive effect on developmental outcomes, resource dependence has a stronger negative indirect effect that operates through its negative impact on institutional quality. The results also depend on the type of development outcome considered, with more consistent positive direct effects found for physical capital measures and stronger negative indirect effects for human capital development. The use of a simultaneous framework and dual measures of resources reconciles seemingly contradictory findings in earlier work.     

Household heterogeneity and consumption dynamics in the presence of borrowing and liquidity constraints

I study the effects of borrowing and liquidity constraints on the response of consumption to anticipated income changes. Using the PSID over 1999–2013, I find that the well-documented strong excess sensitivity of consumption to income of highly constrained households can be explained by episodes of income increases. In addition, I look into the heterogeneity of households without debt, a group that has been largely disregarded by the literature. My fixed-effects estimates show that only those without debt tend to increase their saving in response to anticipated income declines, irrespective of the amount of liquid assets held.     

Does poverty constrain deforestation? Econometric evidence from Peru

This paper examines the relationship between income and land clearing for households living in tropical forest regions. A simple model of the agricultural household that clears land for agriculture is developed to investigate the relationship between lagged income and cleared land holdings. Analysis of panel data from Peru suggests that lagged income is positively correlated with clearing, though at a decreasing rate, and, because of labor market constraints, clearing is positively correlated with household labor availability. This work suggests that small increases in the incomes of the poorest are unlikely to reduce deforestation in this context.     

The economic relevance of sustainable agroforestry practices — An empirical analysis from Tanzania

This paper investigates the economic relevance of sustainable behavior of agroforestry practices for smallholders using the example of firewood exploitation in rural Tanzania. Three questions are addressed: (1) To what extent do households behave sustainably regarding firewood extraction from agroforestry? (2) Which factors determine the likelihood of households practicing sustainable agroforestry? (3) Are sustainably behaving households better off in terms of income compared to households practicing unsustainable agroforestry? The analysis is based on cross-sectional data of 314 households. A sustainability indicator shows that the share of sustainable households varies between 14 and 41% depending on the underlying wood growth rate. The results of the logistic regression indicate that property rights regarding the ownership of agricultural land and environmental awareness increase the likelihood of sustainable firewood extraction. Empirical evidence from the quantile regression reveals that poorest households generate higher income if they extract firewood unsustainably. The opposite is true for households of upper income percentiles. Thus, the poor are likely to increase environmental degradation to generate more income causing a ‘downward spiral’ of the poverty–environment trap resulting in income losses in the long run. Households with a per capita income of 524 TZS or more manage their tree stocks sustainably.     

COSTLY INTERMEDIATION AND THE POVERTY OF NATIONS*

This article has two goals: (i) to reduce the 7‐fold productivity differential required to explain the observed 33‐fold income difference between the richest and poorest countries of the world; and (ii) to explain cross‐country differences in the capital‐output ratio. To achieve the first goal we modify the production function of the standard neoclassical growth model to include public capital whose provision is subject to intermediation costs. For the second goal we distort private investment by introducing credit frictions. The model, quantified using cross‐country data, generates an income gap of 33 with productivity differences of only 3 under the measured variations in public and private capital. The required productivity gap declines even further, to 2.1, when we introduce a home‐production sector. On the second goal, however, credit frictions do a poor job of explaining cross‐country variations in the capital‐output ratio.     

资源依赖、地理区位与城市经济增长

本文利用中国城市面板数据,探讨了资源依赖、地理区位与城市经济增长之间的相互关系。研究发现,在控制了地理区位因素之后,资源依赖与城市经济增长之间依然呈现反相关关系,"资源诅咒"在城市层面同样存在。同时,地理区位与自然资源依赖对城市经济增长存在显著的联合影响,距离重要港口城市、中心大城市和三大经济区域中心城市越近,城市经济增长对自然资源的依赖越低,其经济增长越好,优越的地理区位能够减轻资源依赖导致的"资源诅咒"效应。最后,我们的分析也表明,通过降低人力资本投资意愿,阻碍FDI流入,弱化民营经济增长等渠道,资源丰裕导致的资源依赖阻碍了城市的经济增长。     

The application of nonparametric tests to poverty targeting

Many otherwise successful social programs have limited outreach among the very poor. We show how a recently developed nonparametric test can detect this pattern of program participation. We apply the test to data on participation in a microcredit program in India and do find participation increasing in income among the poorest households in the region.     

FROM BOTTOM TO TOP: THE ENTIRE INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN GERMANY, 1992–2003

We analyze the distribution of market income in Germany in the period 1992 to 2003 on the basis of an integrated dataset that encompasses the whole spectrum of the population, from the very poor to the very rich. We find a modest increase of the Gini coefficient, a substantial drop of median income and a remarkable growth of the income share accruing to the economic elite, which we define as the richest 0.001 percent of persons in the population. While the elite mainly obtains its income from business and capital, the income share that it receives in the form of wage income has been increasing. We also show that the dramatic decline of market income in the bottom half of the distribution is very much mitigated by income transfers within private households and by governmental redistribution.