PUBLIC PROGRAMS PARE POVERTY: EVIDENCE FROM CHILE

This study examines the effect of government health care and education programs on the poor in Chile from 2000 to 2006. Results are obtained from a country-wide provincial-level panel data set with information on poverty and indigence head-count ratios, measures on the severity of poverty as captured by the Foster–Greer–Thorbecke P ₂ statistic, per capita public expenditures on health and education, as well as other variables that are thought to influence well-being. We use fixed-effects techniques to correct for time-invariant province-specific characteristics that may affect program placement. Our analysis demonstrates that per capita public health and education expenditures significantly reduce the incidence of poverty and indigence in Chile. In particular, for a 10,000 pesos (about $23) increase in provincial per capita health spending, the poverty head-count ratio decreases by 0.48 percent. Per capita education expenditures are particularly important to reducing the severity of poverty. Our results indicate that for a 10,000 pesos increase in education spending, the severity of poverty declines by as much as 1.53 percent. Furthermore, we provide evidence that public spending in Chile is non-random. In particular, government education expenditures may be allocated in keeping with compensatory motives.     

WELFARE REFORM, EARNINGS, AND INCOMES: NEW EVIDENCE FROM THE SURVEY OF PROGRAM DYNAMICS

The authors ask how welfare reform has affected the earnings and incomes of welfare recipients using a detailed longitudinal data set, the recently released Survey of Program Dynamics (SPD). They find pre-TANF waivers positively affected the earnings and incomes of both female high school graduates and nongraduates, but the effect is statistically significant only for nongraduates. In contrast, the effect of TANF policies is detrimental to nongraduates but improves economic outcomes for graduates. The findings indicate there are still families who are left behind by welfare programs. The results also warrant further use of longitudinal data sets such as the SPD. (JEL I38 , H53 )     

AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES AND RURAL LIVELIHOODS: EVIDENCE FROM ETHIOPIA

ABSTRACT: Agricultural cooperatives are important rural organizations supporting livelihood development and poverty reduction. In recognition of such roles of cooperatives, Ethiopia showed a renewed interest in recent years in promoting cooperative sector development. However, there is lack of a wider and systematic analysis to produce sufficient empirical evidence on the livelihood development and poverty reduction impacts of cooperatives in the country. Using a matching technique on rural household income, saving, agricultural input expenditure and asset accumulation as indicator variables, this paper evaluates the livelihood impact of agricultural cooperatives in Sidama zone, Ethiopia. The finding shows that cooperatives improved the livelihoods of service user farmers through impacting better income, more savings and reduced input costs. In view of such evidence, further promotion, deepening and supporting of agricultural cooperatives is recommended.     

ASSET POVERTY IN THE UNITED STATES, 1984–99: EVIDENCE FROM THE PANEL STUDY OF INCOME DYNAMICS

Using PSID data for the years 1984–99, we estimate the level and severity of asset poverty. We find that despite a sharp decline in the official poverty rate, the asset poverty rate barely budged over this period. Moreover, the severity of asset poverty increased during this period. The likelihood of being asset-poor decreased for those who are college graduates or married with children, whereas it increased for those who are white, for the unmarried elderly, and for those without a college degree. Lifetime events such as changes in job market, marital and homeownership status are correlated with transitions into and out of asset poverty.     

THE PERSISTENCE OF INCOME POVERTY AND LIFESTYLE DEPRIVATION: EVIDENCE FROM ITALY

This article estimates poverty persistence over an individual's lifetime, using two definitions: income poverty and a multidimensional index of lifestyle deprivation. We stress the ability of the two definitions to provide a generally consistent characterization of poverty persistence risks faced by various population subgroups, but also the additional insights to be gained by analysing the two definitions in parallel in a longitudinal context. The results of multiple‐spell hazard rate models highlight the weaknesses of the Italian labour market, the insufficiencies of the existing social security system, and the deep territorial dualism in generating persistent poverty for certain groups of the population.     

社会资本的作用随市场化进程减弱还是加强?-来自中国农村贫困的实证研究

在市场化转型的过程中,社会资本作为一种非市场力量,它的作用会随着市场化进程减弱还是加强?本文以农村贫困为例,研究了市场化如何影响社会资本的作用。本文发现:(1)社会网络和公共信任能显著地减少贫困,而且在社区层面的作用尤其明显;(2)随着市场化程度的提高,社会资本减少贫困的作用总体上来说会减少,其中,家庭层面的社会网络的作用减少得尤其显著,而社会层面的社会资本的作用却不会显著下降。     

THE MEASUREMENT OF POVERTY WITH GEOGRAPHICAL AND INTERTEMPORAL PRICE DISPERSION: EVIDENCE FROM RWANDA

It is not known to what extent welfare measures result from seasonal and geographical price differences rather than from differences in living standards across households. Using data from Rwanda in 1983, we show that the change in mean living standard indicators caused by local and seasonal price deflation is moderately significant at every quarter. By contrast, the differences in poverty measures caused by this deflation can be considerable, for chronic as well as transient or seasonal poverty indicators. Thus, poverty monitoring and anti-poverty targeting can be badly affected by inaccurate deflation of living standard data. Moreover, when measuring seasonal poverty, the deflation based on regional prices instead of local prices only partially corrects for spatial price dispersion. Using annual local prices instead of quarterly local prices only yields a partial deflation, which distorts the measure of poverty fluctuations across seasons and biases estimates of annual and chronic poverty.     

PRICE,PRODUCT QUALITY,AND EXPORTER DYNAMICS: EVIDENCE FROM CHINA

This article develops a model of heterogeneous firms that endogenously choose prices and product quality to build demand in export markets. New exporters optimally charge relatively low prices and produce low‐quality goods upon entry. Product quality, prices, and sales increase as demand grows. We structurally estimate model parameters using Chinese customs data. The estimated incentive to build future demand reduces average export prices by 0.7% and increases export sales by 4% upon entry. Endogenous demand accumulation causes estimated export prices, product quality, and sales to grow by 2.2%, 12%, and 79%, respectively, over the following five years.     

PATTERNS OF TRADE AND GROWTH UNDER INCREASING RETURNS: ESCAPE FROM THE POVERTY TRAP*

We consider a two-sector model of intertemporal resource allocation in which the investment good sector exhibits an initial phase of increasing returns in production. The economy maximizes a discounted sum of one period utilities derived from the consumption good. If it is autarkic, it may face a poverty trap from which it cannot escape even if it follows an optimal policy. If it engages in trade with the outside world as a price taker, it may escape from the trap. The optimal patterns of production and trade are analysed for such an economy.     

DEMOCRACY AND ECONOMIC REFORM: THEORY AND SOME EVIDENCE FROM THE RUSSIAN CASE

The paper examines theoretical issues concerning the relationship between political democracy and economic reform and builds on the empirical material from the recent experience of Russia. The process of transition to democracy is shown to have started spontaneously due to the situation of power stalemate among pressure groups that came to control the communist system in the years preceding its ultimate collapse. The unrestrained control by those groups is shown to be the reason behind the continued economic collapse, while gradual build-up of the democratic system can in the long run act in the direction of improving the chances for a successful economic reform.     

GROWTH AND INCOME POVERTY IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN: EVIDENCE FROM HOUSEHOLD SURVEYS

This paper provides evidence on growth and income poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Results are obtained by processing microdata from household surveys of 18 LAC countries covering the 1990s and early 2000s. Over this period the LAC economies experienced heterogeneous patterns of growth and poverty changes. Most countries in the region had a rather meager performance in terms of poverty reduction. Episodes of positive, significant and unambiguously pro-poor income growth have been rare in Latin America.     

DYNAMICS OF KNOWLEDGE SPILLOVERS FROM PATENTS TO ENTREPRENEURSHIP: EVIDENCE ACROSS ENTREPRENEURSHIP TYPES

Using data across U.S. states over a recent decade, this paper uniquely uses three qualitatively different measures of entrepreneurship to examine the knowledge flows from patents, paying attention to the dynamic nature of such influences. We find that there are significant variations in the effects of knowledge flows across entrepreneurship types and, in general, these effects are not immediate. The greatest positive effect of knowledge spillovers is on startup entrepreneurship and the resulting magnitude grows somewhat over time. The spillovers are modest on overall entrepreneurship, while entrepreneurs who were previously employed see more immediate benefits. These findings are generally robust. (JEL L26, O33, O51, M21)     

IMMIGRATION POLICY, CULTURAL PLURALISM AND TRADE: EVIDENCE FROM THE WHITE AUSTRALIA POLICY

Abstract.   Examining data for Australia and 101 trading partners that span the years 1989–2000, we find immigrants from nations afforded preference under the White Australia policy exert greater proportional influences on Australian imports from their home countries compared to immigrants from nations not privy to such preference. Immigrants from this latter group of countries influence Australian exports to their home countries proportionally more than do immigrants from the former group. We also find immigrant-trade links vary across disaggregated measures of trade. The results suggest that cultural diversity, affected here by immigration policy, is relevant to a nation's trade patterns.     

POVERTY IN RURAL INDIA: CASTE AND TRIBE

This paper analyzes the determinants of rural poverty in India, contrasting the situation of scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST) households with the non-scheduled population. The incidence of poverty in SC and ST households is much higher than among non-scheduled households. By combining regression estimates for the ratio of per capita expenditure to the poverty line and an Oaxaca-type decomposition analysis, we study how these differences in the incidence of poverty arise. We find that for SC households, differences in characteristics explain the gaps in poverty incidence more than differences in transformed regression coefficients. In contrast, for ST households, differences in the transformed regression coefficients play the more important role.     

ESTIMATING THE INCIDENCES OF THE RECENT PENSION REFORM IN CHINA: EVIDENCE FROM 100,000 MANUFACTURERS

An ongoing reform in China mandates employers to contribute significant amounts to employee pension funds. The current study estimates the impact of this reform on the wage, employment, and performance of firms using data from over 140,000 medium and large manufacturers in China during 2004 and 2006. We find that the nominal wages of employees were rigid, but their real wages may have declined due to the pension reform. In addition, we find an interesting dichotomy in the incidences of pension reform. In localities with high agglomeration levels, firms' profits declined because the pension burden could not be fully transferred to employees. In less agglomerated jurisdictions, firms responded positively to pension reform, possibly because local governments over‐subsidized the pension costs as a way to attract investment. (JEL H32, H55, J26)     

POVERTY,ELITE HETEROGENEITY,AND THE ALLOCATION OF PUBLIC SPENDING: PANEL EVIDENCE FROM THE INDIAN STATES

In this paper, we explore how in India, the world's largest democracy, the presence of different elite groups—the dominant landed and capitalist elite, and the minority elite (who are the elected representatives of the marginalized women and low caste population)—could affect the nature and extent of public spending on various accounts, especially education. We argue that the productive cooperation between the capitalist elite and workers may induce capitalists to favor spending on education, while the landed elite tend to oppose investment in basic education because they are fearful of dilution of their political dominance by the educated poor. While the minority elite may tend to favor redistributive spending, including that on education, their effectiveness could be limited by their under‐representation in the government. Results from the Indian states for the period 1960–2002 provide support for these hypotheses.     

后危机时代我国区域出口贸易战略的调整——基于东中西三大区域面板模型的分析

国际金融危机对我国区域出口贸易影响主要来自需求因素、供给因素与阻力因素的冲击。通过面板模型分析,结果显示外部需求锐减、劳动力成本上涨是导致我国出口贸易骤减的重要原因。从区域层面看,国外收入水平下滑、劳动力成本上涨、投资下降对东部地区出口波动影响显著,需求减少与原材料价格波动是中部地区出口受挫的主要原因,劳动力成本上涨与FDI是西部地区出口下滑的重要因素。在后危机时代,我国应加快对外贸易转型升级,优化东部地区出口贸易结构,培育中西部地区产业转移承接能力。     

ROADS AND POVERTY IN RURAL LAOS: AN ECONOMETRIC ANALYSIS

The relationship between poverty incidence and road development is analyzed econometrically in this paper, in the context of rural Laos. Between 1997–1998 and 2002–2003, rural poverty incidence in Laos declined by 9.5% of the rural population. Approximately 13% of this decline can be attributed to improved road access. There is now a high return to providing dry weather access to the most isolated households of Laos, those with no road access at all. They constitute 31.6% of all rural households in Laos and are being left behind by the development of the market economy.     

EFFECTS OF STRENGTHENING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS IN NEWLY INDUSTRIALIZED ECONOMIES: EVIDENCE FROM TAIWAN'S 1994 PATENT REFORM

Does strengthening intellectual property rights (IPR) in terms of a longer patent life induce more patents? This article investigates the responses of high‐technology firms to Taiwan’s 1994 patent reform. Empirical analyses reveal that firms’ patenting propensity rose gradually before patent reform and showed an increase after patent reform, tending to support the viewpoint that stronger IPR can induce more patents. However, this cannot lead to lasting effect. Furthermore, patenting capability can serve as the access ticket for potential entrants to a science park under the circumstance of stronger IPR protections. These new entrants are found to have a better post‐entry performance in patenting relative to the incumbents in the short run. (JEL O14, O31)     

PRICES,INEQUALITY, AND POVERTY: METHODOLOGY AND INDIAN EVIDENCE

This paper uses a methodology for evaluating the distributional implications of price movement for inequality and poverty measurement. The methodology is based on a distinction between inequalities in nominal and real expenditure. The conversion of nominal to real expenditure takes into account the varying household preferences. The empirical application to the Indian budget datasets from NSS rounds 50, 55, and 61 shows the usefulness of the proposed procedures. The relative price changes in India have tended to be inequality and poverty reducing as confirmed by formal statistical tests. The result is robust to expenditure dependent equivalence scales. The progressivity of the relative price changes weakened in the second half of our time period as Fuel and Light overtook the composite group called “Miscellaneous” in recording the largest price increase. While the poverty rates registered a decline, which was marginal in the urban areas, there was a sharp increase in inequality.