Poverty in Indonesia 1984–2002: the impact of growth and changes in inequality

This paper examines the growth elasticity of poverty across three development episodes in Indonesia between 1984 and 2002, after controlling for inequality. It relies on estimation of panel data from the National Socio-Economic Survey conducted by the central statistics agency. Contrary to expectations, the growth elasticity of poverty was virtually indistinguishable across the three development episodes – a period of far-reaching policy liberalisation (1984–90); a second period of slower liberalisation (1990–96); and the period of recovery from the Asian financial crisis (1999–2002). Growth was pro-poor in all three periods, while the impact of growth on poverty was either augmented or offset by changes in inequality, depending on the period. Only during the first liberalisation period did a reduction in inequality serve to augment the impact of growth on poverty.     

The impact of past growth on poverty in Chinese provinces

The impact of prior economic growth on current poverty rates within provincial-level China is examined using panel data and semiparametric techniques. Results reveal that prior short-run growth raises poverty levels; prior long-run growth increases poverty in slow-growing provinces, while reducing poverty in faster growing provinces. Additionally, there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between poverty and income; i.e. at lower income levels, the poverty rate increases with income, while the opposite holds at higher income levels. However, higher savings rates or higher income inequality makes this tradeoff less favorable. Interestingly, many traditional poverty explanatory variables lack explanatory power after taking into account the impact of prior growth.     

Lessons from the 2008 Financial Crisis: Policy Responses to External Shocks in Uruguay

The 2008 global economic crisis affected the Uruguayan economy through two main channels: collapse in global trade and drop in capital flows. In response to the crisis, the Uruguayan government increased public consumption and investment and expanded social benefits to unemployed workers. We apply a computable general equilibrium model linked to microsimulations to analyze the distributional impacts of these policies and assess their effectiveness. We find that an increase in public investment was the only policy effective in mitigating the negative impact of the crisis on extreme poverty. The other policies reinforced the negative impact of the crisis on the poor. All three policies are costly and have an important impact on macroeconomic variables and the structure of production and export, while they have only slight or negative results on poverty and household income. More focalized policies, such as direct cash transfers, might have better results in terms of cost‐benefit.     

The costs of reducing deforestation in Indonesia

In this second contribution to the Policy Dialogue, Colin Hunt emphasises the large contribution that oil palm plantations and the pulp and paper industry have been making to Indonesia's economic growth in recent years, notwithstanding the environmental consequences of such activities. The implication is that avoided deforestation can be expected to have a significant negative impact on segments of the population who would benefit from the business and employment opportunities that would otherwise be generated, directly or indirectly. Palm oil companies typically spend about three dollars on goods, services and labour for every dollar of profit. The author argues that any compensation package for avoided deforestation needs to include all the potential beneficiaries of palm oil production, not just the palm oil companies, and to generate economic activity similar to that being replaced. (Ed.)     

Poverty and vulnerability in rural China: effects of taxation

This paper studies the impact of taxation on poverty and ex ante vulnerability of households in rural China based on national household survey data in 1988, 1995 and 2002. It has been confirmed that (i) poverty and vulnerability have reduced significantly with a great deal of geographical disparity; (ii) education, land, and access to infrastructure and irrigation facilities are the key factors to reduce vulnerability; and (iii) the highly regressive tax system increased farmers’ poverty and vulnerability. The abolishment of rural tax since 2006 would thus have a significant negative impact on both poverty and vulnerability of rural households.     

中国黄金市场与外汇市场间收益、波动溢出效应实证分析--基于VEC-DCC(BEKK)-BVEGARCH模型

用向量自回归动态二元EGARCH模型,对中国黄金市场与外汇市场间的收益与波动,在金融危机前后溢出效应进行分析。研究显示：美元兑人民币汇率和中国黄金不存在溢出效应,欧元兑人民币汇率对黄金存在负向溢出效应;较之金融危机以前,美元和欧元兑人民币汇率对黄金收益的波动溢出效应减弱,尤其是美元,危机前,黄金市场对来自美元和欧元外汇市场的信息冲击,存在显著＂杠杆效应＂;危机期间,市场间＂杠杆效应＂减弱。     

农机社会化服务采纳、禀赋差异与农村经济相对贫困缓解

进入以缓解相对贫困为重点的后扶贫时代，农村经济相对贫困问题仍不容忽视。农机社会化服务作为小农户与现代农业有机衔接的桥梁，对于推进乡村振兴战略和脱贫攻坚有序衔接具有重要作用。文章讨论的核心议题是农机社会化服务采纳如何缓解农村经济相对贫困，并尝试建立了“农机社会化服务采纳——禀赋差异缩小——农村经济相对贫困缓解”的理论分析框架。为此，文章首先对农机社会化服务采纳影响农村经济相对贫困的作用机制进行了理论分析，然后利用2750份河南省农户问卷调查数据，运用Logit模型，实证检验农机社会化服务采纳对农村经济相对贫困的影响，并通过替代核心自变量和变更样本的方法进行稳健性检验，运用PSM模型和IVProbit模型以及ERM模型进行内生性讨论，最后通过中介效应模型对其作用机制进行验证。结果表明，农机社会化服务采纳对农村经济相对贫困具有显著负向影响，缓解了农村经济相对贫困。考虑内生性后，结论仍具有稳健性。进一步的机制验证发现，农机社会化服务采纳通过缩小劳动力禀赋差异和技术禀赋差异，缓解农村经济相对贫困，劳动力禀赋差异缩小和技术禀赋差异缩小的中介效应占比分别为21.22%和7.36%。可见，应将完善农机社会化服务供需体系纳入农户相对贫困治理机制考虑范畴，引导农户从传统家庭化生产转向现代社会化生产，扩大农机社会化服务采纳范围；同时完善就业服务等相关配套体系以吸纳释放的弱劳动力，促进农户收入增长，缓解农村经济相对贫困。     

后金融危机时代国际黄金价格影响因素实证分析

以2007年10月至2013年9月黄金价格月度数据为依据,采用多元线性回归模型,对影响国际黄金价格的因素进行计量分析。模型的研究结果表明:在后金融危机时代国际黄金价格的影响因素与以往学者的研究结论有较大的差别,美元指数、美国广义货币发行量和美国通货膨胀率符合研究假设,成为显著影响黄金价格的因素,而美国联邦基金利率、道琼斯工业指数以及石油价格对黄金价格的影响则不显著。     

Economic Crisis,Small Farmer Well-Being,and Forest Cover Change in Indonesia

Field research was conducted on 1,050 Indonesian households to understand the effects of the Asian economic crisis on the well-being of small farmers outside of Java and on their forest-clearing practices. The main findings are: (a) most farmers perceived themselves as worse off during the crisis than before, challenging the claim that farmers with export income would be better off and (b) forest clearing by farmers increased significantly during the crisis to expand rubber holdings and other tree crops, with the aim of increasing future income security. Among the policy lessons are that crop diversification and targeted aid can minimize impoverishment and avert increased forest clearing following macroeconomic destabilization.     

Household appliance ownership and income inequality: Evidence from micro data in China

As the residential sector is becoming increasingly important in the total energy consumption and appliance ownership is a significant but under-examined driver, this study investigates the relationship between income inequality and appliance ownership using panel data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS). We find that income inequality has negative impacts on appliance penetration rate across specifications, except for the initial development stage. On average, households start adopting air conditioners at a threshold of over 60,000 (2011 RMB) based on annual income, much higher than TV, fridge and washer (8500–9000 RMB). The empirical results validate the S-shape curve of appliance established in the literature. To understand the magnitude of the impact and policy implications, we further simulate the impact of poverty alleviation and the penetration paths under inclusive versus exclusive income growth. Our results demonstrate that current poverty line is too low to achieve appliance adoption – a signal for modern life-styles. In addition, a more inclusive growth path could lead to much higher penetration for regions that have relatively low growth rate.     

Agricultural trade liberalization and poverty in China

The overall goal of this paper is to examine the impacts of trade liberalization on China's agriculture, in general, and poverty, in particular. The impacts on agriculture are analyzed by commodity and by region. Because different farmers (especially those in different income brackets) produce diverse sets of commodities, the main part of our paper analyzes the effects on households and their implications for the poverty through the simulation of household production and consumption changes in response to the trade-induced market prices changes on a disaggregated (by province), household-level basis. The results of our analysis lead to the conclusion that, unlike fears expressed in the popular press and by some scholars, the positive impacts of trade liberalization are actually greater than the negative ones. Although other effects on the rural economy from trade liberalization of other subsectors (such as textiles) may be equally large or even larger, this study's focus on the agricultural sector shows that there will be an impact from agricultural trade liberalization and that the net impact is positive for the average farm household in China. However, policymakers still need to be concerned. Not all households and not all commodities will be treated equally. Our findings show that poorer households, especially those in the provinces in the western parts of China, will be hurt. The main reason is that the farmers in Western China are currently producing commodities that are receiving positive rates of protection, rates of protection that will fall with additional trade liberalization. Hence, if policy makers want to minimize the impacts, there needs to be an effort to minimize the effect on these households either by direct assistance or by eliminating constraints that are keeping households from becoming more efficient by shifting their production more towards those commodities that will benefit from trade liberalization.     

Poverty incidence and economic growth in Southeast Asia

The countries of Southeast Asia have achieved very large reductions in absolute poverty incidence over recent decades. This paper examines the relationship between this accomplishment and the rate of economic growth. It develops a time series of available data on the headcount measure of poverty incidence for Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines over the period from the 1960s to 1999, in aggregate and in both rural and urban areas. It then uses this pooled data set to analyze the economic determinants of poverty incidence, the impact of the 1997 economic crisis and the degree to which poverty will be affected by alternative hypothetical recovery paths.     

Soil and water conservation investments and rural development in China

This study uses a unique set of annual provincial data on soil and water conservation (SWC) investments during the period 1989–2005 to estimate the impact of such investments on the extent and severity of erosion, the growth rate of agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) and rural poverty reduction in China. We find that SWC investments made by local governments have a significant negative impact on the extent of erosion and (in recent years) the severity of erosion, whereas SWC investments made by farm households until recently had a significant negative effect on the severity of erosion. In its turn, the severity of erosion is found to have a significant negative impact on agricultural GDP. Estimation of the impact of the extent of erosion on agricultural GDP provides mixed results. Based on these results, we derive that one RMB invested in SWC by local governments increases agricultural GDP in 2002 with 0.84–1.25 RMB. Finally, we find that agricultural GDP has a significant negative impact on the rural poverty rate. The resulting indirect effect of SWC investment on rural poverty reduction, however, is small compared to other types of public investment. We conclude that (local) government investments in SWC do not only serve environmental goals, but also make a non-negligible contribution to agricultural growth and rural poverty reduction.     

Resistance to coal inequalities and the possibilities of a just transition in South Africa*

ABSTRACT

Coal mining and burning are among the most destructive activities on the planet, and a major driver of environmental inequality in South Africa. This article suggests that, despite heavy constraints, initiatives involving resistance to coal are building a ‘counter-power’ which challenges inequality, generates solidarity, and is potentially infused by imaginative visions of another world beyond coal. Following the ‘social power’ approach this vision could, with deeper connections between three sites of resistance to coal – organised labour, mining affected communities and environmental justice organisations – cohere into a vision of a ‘just transition’. This could embed the anti-coal struggle in a social movement for an alternative development path to challenge deepening poverty and inequality.     

Revisiting the Impact of Consumption Growth and Inequality on Poverty in Indonesia during Decentralisation

This article analyses the consumption growth elasticity and inequality elasticity of poverty in Indonesia, with a particular focus on the decentralisation period. Using provincial panel data, we show that the effectiveness of growth in alleviating poverty across provinces was greater during decentralisation—that is, between 2002 and 2010—than at any other point since 1984. The growth elasticity of poverty since 2002 is estimated to have been –2.46, which means that a 10% increase in average consumption per capita would have reduced the poverty rate by almost 25%. However, we also find that rising income inequality negated a quarter to a third of the 5.7-percentage-point reduction in the headcount poverty rate. This increasing inequality has contributed to a lower level of pro-poor growth than that maintained in Indonesia before decentralisation.     

Economic Effects of Taxes on Exports of Palm Oil Products

In an effort to control increases in the prices of certain tradable commodities in recent years, the Indonesian government has experimented with a variety of policy interventions. Palm oil is important both as an export commodity and for household consumption in the form of cooking oil. We examine a palm oil export tax policy that ran from September 1994 through June 1997. We find that the taxes did reduce the domestic prices of palm oil products, and we estimate their effects on the distribution of income within Indonesia. Notably, we find that they actually reduced revenues of the government, and lowered profits for palm oil refiners. We also examine the efficiency effects and other aspects of the taxes. Finally, we discuss more drastic export restraints imposed more recently by the government during the economic crisis.     

人口流动对农户环境治理支付意愿的影响——基于双栏模型

农村环境治理关乎乡村振兴的成效，农户的参与与否及其参与程度直接影响着农村环境治理的成效。基于农村人口流动的现状，对福建、安徽、陕西三省的529位农户进行了调查，采用双栏模型检验家庭人口流动对农户环境治理支付意愿及其支付额度的影响程度。结果表明，人口流动对农户环境治理支付意愿有显著的负向作用，而对农户环境治理支付额度有显著的正向作用。此外，不同省份区域人口流动对环境治理支付意愿的影响机制不同。     

Capital Flows and Economic Growth in the Era of Financial Integration and Crisis, 1990–2010

We investigate the relationship between economic growth and lagged international capital flows, disaggregated into FDI, portfolio investment, equity investment, and short-term debt. We follow about 100 countries during 1990–2010 when emerging markets became more integrated into the international financial system. We look at the relationship both before and after the global crisis. Our study reveals a complex and mixed picture. The relationship between growth and lagged capital flows depends on the type of flows, economic structure, and global growth patterns. We find a large and robust relationship between FDI – both inflows and outflows – and growth. The relationship between growth and equity flows is smaller and less stable. Finally, the relationship between growth and short-term debt is nil before the crisis, and negative during the crisis.     

The growth,poverty and inequality nexus in South Africa: Cointegration and causality analysis

This study empirically established the long-run relationship and causality effects that exist between growth, poverty and inequality. The analysis was carried out on a panel of nine South African provinces from 1995 to 2012. To capture poverty and inequality in a broader context, two measures of poverty (income and non-income) and three measures of inequality (income, education and land) were adopted for the study. The results confirm that there is a long-run relationship between growth, poverty and inequality. Notable results from the causality tests suggest that growth does not promote equal distribution of income in society but as income distribution begins to equalise, economic growth rises. This is regarded as growth–inequality disconnect. The unidirectional causality, which runs from income poverty to income inequality, suggests that a rising level of income poverty will lead to falling income inequality in the society; likewise, income inequality increases as non-income poverty declines.     

土地经营权流转、耕地配置与农民收入增长

文章基于全国8省农户微观调查数据,探讨了中国农村土地流转市场发育在优化耕地资源配置和提高农民收入方面的作用。实证结论表明,现行土地流转起到了改进耕地配置效率的作用,有助于那些具有较高农业生产能力水平但初始土地禀赋有限的农户获得更多的土地。对农户参与土地流转所可能获得收益大小的进一步估计显示,土地流转同时显著提高了农户家庭的收入水平,在平均意义下土地流转能使任意样本农户家庭和已流转土地农户家庭的总收入分别增加19%和26%左右。此外,文章分别从土地转入和土地转出,检验了土地流转增收效应的非对称性特征,发现在土地流转过程中,转入土地农户家庭的收入增长幅度要显著高于转出土地的农户家庭。