Targeting Poverty

Poverty reduction has been adopted as the official objective of many multilateral and bilateral development institutions. This paper argues that this focus needs to be clarified, especially the distinction between absolute and relative poverty. It argues that reduction of absolute poverty should be one of the objectives of foreign assistance, but not the sole objective. First, measures of absolute poverty are highly limited in scope. Second, the resources of foreign aid are fungible when recipient governments reallocate their own resources in response to the aid. Third, bilateral aid should reflect all the foreign policy objectives of the donor country.     

基于能力贫困与权利贫困视角的我国城市贫困原因分析——以甘肃省为例

城市贫困问题已成为中国改革和发展中急需解决的重要问题,治理城市贫困关系到稳定大局,实现“共同富裕”的发展目标,也是全面建设小康社会的必然要求。本文从能力贫困和权利贫困角度出发,结合甘肃省具体情况,对我国城市贫困原因进行了分析,并提出一些建议。     

保险扶贫的减贫效果分析

贫困问题是当今世界最尖锐的社会问题之一,为了解决我国的贫困问题,精准扶贫概念已提出五年有余,保险扶贫作为精准扶贫的一大利器,其成效如何值得关注。本文利用2013年至2016年我国30个省(市、直辖区)的统计数据,运用固定效应模型对保险扶贫的减贫效果进行分析,研究发现保险业的发展确能有效促进贫困人口规模的减少,保险扶贫的相关手段应进一步推广,打造符合贫困群体实际需求的保险扶贫产品和服务体系,为实现全面脱贫奠定坚实基础。     

Assessing Poverty Trends in Indonesia by International Poverty Lines

Indonesia has made well-documented and drastic progress in raising average incomes and reducing poverty. This article adds to the literature by providing a complementary perspective of poverty between 1984 and 2011. We discuss the evolution of poverty in Indonesia using international poverty lines—$1.25 per person per day (in 2005 purchasing power parity dollars) and $2.00 per day, and we add $10.00 per day. We generate estimates of poverty since 1984 and make projections based on various trends in growth and inequality. We find that Indonesia has the potential to become a high-income country by around 2025 and end $1.25-per-day and $2.00-perday poverty by 2030, but this will require strong economic growth and favourable changes in distribution. Looking ahead, the end of poverty in Indonesia may mean that a large proportion of the population will remain vulnerable to poverty for some time to come, suggesting that public policy priorities will need to balance insurance and risk-management mechanisms with more ‘traditional’ poverty policy.     

贫困问题与广东扶贫措施浅析

如何搞好扶贫工作是解决“三农”问题的重要内容，本文通过贫困问题的解读和广东扶贫措施的回顾和分析，使我们了解什么是贫困，扶贫的重点应放在哪里，以及应注意避免哪些误区。     

精准扶贫框架下的城市贫困治理

贫困问题是全球面临的重大难题,亦是古今中外治国理政的大事。我国为响应全球治理贫困的需求,同时为化解国内严峻的贫困形势,2013年在农村地区开始实行"精准扶贫"战略,实践取得了巨大成功。反观城市贫困人口的数量却一直居高不下,不仅缺乏精准化救助理念与形式,而且在治理主体与体系方面也缺少精准性,为实现城市与乡村的协调发展,也为实现共同富裕的目标,在分析精准扶贫对城市反贫困的契合基础上,欲运用精准扶贫作为指导,从救助理念、形式、主体、体系这四个方面进行精准化设计,实现精准性城市贫困治理。     

Poverty and protectionism

The United States had a trade deficit of $170 billion in 1987 and, even though the value of the dollar has been declining, the deficit has shown no consistent pattern of improvement. The magnitude and persistence of the trade imbalance has led to a great deal of discussion of its impact on the U.S. economy and of policies that might be used to correct the imbalance. One major consideration that is often overlooked is the distributional and equity effect of the trade situation on the poor. While some advocates embrace protectionist policies as a means of “saving” jobs for low-income Americans, others argue that these measures raise the cost of goods used by the poor with no guarantee that jobs are actually saved. The following article reviews the available evidence on the position of low-income Americans under a policy of protectionism.     

社会保障制度中贫困线和贫困率的测算

确定合理的贫困标准和贫困线是建立社会保障制度的重要一环。本文从贫困的定义与分类出发,论述了计算贫困线和贫困率的几种主要方法,然后提出了利用收入分布函数计算贫困线和贫困率的新方法。本文还同时提出了一种拟合收入分组数据的分布函数,效果十分理想。收入分布函数的拟合是本文所提出的算法之关键,计算结果的准确性直接取决于分布函数的拟合质量。本文将生物学中常用的逻辑期蒂函数稍加变形应用于收入分布函数的拟合取得了理想效果,并给出了计算这例。     

互联网使用对农户多维贫困的减贫效应研究

农村多维贫困问题的研究有助于精准扶贫和乡村振兴战略的有效实施。本文基于2016 年中国家庭追踪调查数据库（CFPS）,运用A-F 测度方法对农户的多维贫困进行测度和分解,着重探讨了互联网使用对农户多维贫困的减贫效应。研究结果表明,财产性收入、农户家庭住房、生活燃料、受教育年限和社会保险等方面的贫困发生率较高;财产性收入、受教育年限对多维贫困的贡献率最大,在农户脱贫过程中起关键作用;农户家庭使用互联网对农户多维贫困的减贫效应显著,而且在高维贫困上的减贫效应更大,个体特征、家庭特征、村级特征等也都对多维贫困产生影响。因此,加大农村地区互联网基础设施建设力度,注重信息化的普及和推广,贯彻落实“互联网+”扶贫政策,能够有效解决贫困农户的“能力贫困”问题,有助于实现贫困户脱贫及脱贫质量的提高。     

Poverty in Edwardian Britain

This article introduces a newly discovered household budget data set for 1904. We use these data to estimate urban poverty among working families in the British Isles. Applying Bowley's poverty line, we estimate that at least 23 per cent of people in urban working households and 18 per cent of working households had income insufficient to meet minimum needs. This is well above Rowntree's estimate of primary poverty for York in 1899 and high in the range that Bowley found in northern towns in 1912–13. The skill gradient of poverty is steep; for instance, among labourers' households, the poverty rates are close to 50 per cent. Measures of the depth of poverty are relatively low in the data, suggesting that most poor male-headed working households were close to meeting Bowley's new standard.     

Poverty measures and definitions

In this article an attempt is made to explain what poverty means and how it is measured. Absolute income measures are discussed with reference to England, America, Australia and South Africa. These encompass the poverty line, the social security administration measure, the Henderson poverty line, the South African poverty datum line and the poverty gap. Relative income measures of poverty used in England, America and Australia are described. Absolute measures of poverty, the income‐net worth approach, a definition that includes other resources and a balance sheet method are explained. Socio‐economic measures are dealt with. These include the sociological concept of poverty, socio‐economic status measures and the culture of poverty view. Other measures described are public dependency and residential measures, mortality measures, a normative measure and subjective poverty.     

贫困概念的演进

自对贫困有确切的定义开始至今已有100多年的历史,其间,贫困概念从关注单一的收入因素到关注剥夺、排斥和脆弱性,经历了不断的演化过程。如何定义贫困不仅影响到使用怎样的方法来测度贫困,更重要的是决定着相应的减贫政策。对这一演进过程进行梳理,有利于更全面地理解贫困,并由此推动减贫实践的深入。     

Emerging Urban Poverty and Effects of the Dibao Program on Alleviating Poverty in China

The present paper describes the current urban poverty situation,examines the factors affecting the probability of a household being in poverty and investigates how the urban minimum living standard guarantee (dibao) program helps poor people to get out of poverty. The targeting efficiency of the urban dibao program is discussed. The present study finds that the poverty rate of households with unemployed workers is much higher than that of households without unemployed workers. The urban dibao program is helpful in reducing poverty rates,but it does not reduce poverty rates too much. The government should place emphasis on helping laid-off and unemployed workers to become reemployed. The most urgent problem for the dibao program is improving the efficiency of targeting.     

Alternative Poverty Lines for Malaysia

Because of the shortcomings of the Malaysian official poverty line, this paper offers several alternative regional poverty line estimations with varying underlying assumptions. Using the Household Expenditure Survey 2004/2005, poverty lines are estimated based on the consumption patterns of 10th and 20th percentile household per capita expenditure. The regional poverty lines from these reference groups produced robust poverty measurement rankings across regions in the country. We suggest that the poverty lines from both reference groups be used as lower and upper poverty lines for the country.