Poverty in Palanpur

The meaning and identification of poverty are examined usingthree indicators of standard of living in the North Indian villageof Palanpur. The first is intended as a measure of "apparentprosperity" based on the personal assessments of investigatorsafter intensive field work in the village over the full agriculturalyear 1983–84. The other two are income in 1983–84,and a measure of permanent income obtained by averaging incomesfrom four surveys conducted over a twenty-six-year interval.A comparison of these three indicators shows that income measuredin any one year may give a misleading impression of the incidenceof poverty. The risk of poverty for households is calculated.Vulnerability is high among low-caste households and those whichare involved in agricultural labor. Categories, however, arenot homogeneous; for example, whereas the landless and widowsare more likely to be poor, some of such households are quitewell off. It is argued that poverty in a good agricultural yearis a better indicator of sustained poverty than poverty in abad year. Occupational mobility out of agricultural labor islow, and changes in the distribution of land are largely accountedfor by demographic processes such as household splits.     

The Many Dimensions of Child Poverty: Evidence from the UK Millennium Cohort Study*

In this paper, we use a multidimensional framework to characterise child poverty in the UK. We examine the interdependencies amongst the different dimensions of multidimensional poverty and the relationship between multidimensional poverty and income poverty. We also explore the links between multidimensional poverty, income poverty and children's cognitive and non‐cognitive development. Our findings suggest that multidimensional poverty identifies many but not all of the same children classified using standard income poverty measures. Approximately 20 per cent of children are classified as poor on one measure but not the other. Children in workless households and ethnic minority children face the highest odds of growing up in both multidimensional poverty and income poverty. We find similar levels of persistence in multidimensional poverty and income poverty, with 17 per cent (18 per cent) of children experiencing persistent multidimensional (income) poverty and 10 per cent of children experiencing both persistent multidimensional poverty and persistent income poverty. Multidimensional poverty (both episodic and persistent) also has a detrimental impact on children's development over and above the negative impact of income poverty.     

Decomposition analysis of distributive policies using behavioural simulations

For policy makers and analysts, it is important to isolate the redistributive impact of tax-benefit reforms from changes in the environment in which policies operate. When actual reforms are motivated by work incentives, it is also crucial to evaluate behavioural responses and the distributional consequences thereof. For that purpose, I embed counterfactual simulations in a formal decomposition framework to quantify the relative roles of (i)?direct tax-benefit policy changes, (ii)?indirect policy effects due to labour supply responses to the reforms and (iii)?all other factors affecting income distribution over time. An application to the UK shows that the redistributive reforms of the 1998–2001 period have offset much of the rise in market income inequality and contributed to a strong decline in child poverty and poverty amongst single parent households. In the latter group, a third of the headcount poverty reduction (and half of the reduction in the depth of poverty) is on account of the very large incentive effect of the policy changes.     

数字金融、家庭相对收入及脆弱性——兼论多维“鸿沟”的影响

数字金融发展是否有利于提升家庭相对收入并降低家庭脆弱性值得深入研究。基于宏微观匹配数据,本文从相对收入及脆弱性视角考察了数字金融的增收效应及其微观作用机理,并分析了多维“鸿沟”的影响。研究表明,数字金融发展,尤其是使用深度的提升,有利于提升家庭相对收入水平、降低脆弱性。微观作用机制在于,数字金融发展能够有效提升家庭金融可得性和使用性,并促进潜在投资行为和就业创业活动。进一步分析发现,数字金融发展虽然体现了普惠特征,但并未明显打破空间限制,对城镇等发达地区及具有数字设备、受过金融教育等家庭的相对收入及脆弱性展现出更强的作用;对贫困户、无数字设备等家庭的相对收入作用不显著,充分体现了破除多维“鸿沟”的紧迫性。本文为进一步优化数字金融缩小收入差距、降低家庭脆弱性的政策提供了参考。     

State Dependence in Poverty: The Case of Turkey

Despite poverty alleviation efforts, almost a quarter of households live below the poverty line in Turkey. This article aims to examine the dynamics of poverty focusing on poverty persistence in Turkey, utilizing Income and Living Conditions panel data belonging to 2010–2013. A random effects dynamic panel probit model has been employed. In order to tackle the initial values problem Heckman’s reduced form approximation is utilized. Empirical results indicate that gender, educational attainment, employment type, and household structure have statistically significant impact on the probability of being poor. Besides, experiencing poverty has a positive impact on future poverty likelihood, signalling state dependence.     

Changes in Income Distributions and the Role of Tax‐Benefit Policy During the Great Recession: An International Perspective

In this paper, we examine the impact of the economic crisis and the policy reaction on inequality and relative poverty in four European countries: France, Germany, Ireland and the UK. The period examined, 2008–13, was one of great economic turmoil, yet it is unclear whether changes in inequality and poverty rates over this time period were mainly driven by changes in market income distributions or by tax‐benefit policy reforms. We disentangle these effects by producing counterfactual (‘no reform') scenarios using tax‐benefit microsimulation and representative household surveys for each country. For the first stage of the Great Recession, we find that the policy reaction contributed to stabilising or even decreasing inequality and relative poverty in the UK, France and, especially, Ireland. Market income changes nonetheless pushed up inequality and relative poverty in France. Relative poverty increased in Germany as a result of policy responses combined with market income changes. Subsequent policy reforms, in the later stage of the crisis, had markedly different cross‐country effects, decreasing overall poverty in France, increasing it in Ireland, and giving mixed effects for different subgroups in Germany and the UK.     

Relative Poverty in Great Britain and the United States, 1979–2017

This paper examines the major changes to the face of poverty in Great Britain over the past few decades, assessing the role of policy, and compares and contrasts this with the patterns seen in the United States, using harmonised household survey data. There are various commonalities between the countries, including a shift in the composition of those in poverty towards working‐age households without children, who have not been the focus of policy attention. There are also big differences, with a steadily increasing share of poverty in Great Britain – but a stable share in the United States – found in households with an adult in paid work. This perhaps explains why the anti‐poverty focus in Great Britain is now squarely on the plight of working households, while in the United States it is focused on labour force participation among the low skilled – even though, as we show, the United States has, for decades, been accustomed to in‐work poverty comprising a significantly higher proportion of overall poverty than in Great Britain.     

Endogenous Fertility and the Design of Family Taxation

The paper innovates on the existing optimal taxation literature by taking fertility as endogenous, and allowing for households to be differentiated by their ability to raise children, as well as by their ability to raise income. In a context where the government cannot observe personal abilities, fertility behaviour conveys a great deal of information about those characteristics, which helps to relax the self-selection constraints on re-distribution. Bi-dimentional household differentiation introduces the possibility that re-distribution will be from households with low utility to households with high utility, and that it may be optimal to accentuate or reverse the sign of laissez-faire utility inequality. Contrary to popular belief, we find that it is not necessarily optimal for the tax system to be so designed that an additional child would lighten the tax burden on his or her parents. If it is, the optimal policy may include an unusual mix of taxes on number of children, subsidies on child-specific commodities, income support for low-wage households, and positive marginal income tax rates for all.     

间接税亲贫性与代内归宿——穷人从减税中获益了吗?

税收工具作为财政扶贫机制中的重要一环,在推进精准扶贫、精准脱贫上发挥着重要作用。本文基于CFPS2012入户调查数据和中国2012年投入产出表,运用微观模拟方法测算出家庭的间接税负,在此基础上,借鉴衡量经济“涓滴效应”的亲贫增长指数,构建了识别和测度税制“亲贫性”的数量方法,评估间接税的减税政策能否自发惠及穷人,进一步测算家庭不同年龄层的间接税负代内归宿。结果显示:间接税整体上不具有“亲贫性”,其中增值税的“亲富性”最强,减税能让穷人比富人获益更多;儿童、成人以及老人均是间接税的负税人,贫困家庭抚养小孩而承担的间接税负比重高于非贫困家庭,赡养老人而负担的间接税负比重低于非贫困家庭。据此本文认为,继续推动大规模的间接税减税政策、采取差别化的增值税和消费税减免策略、逐步形成以直接税为主的税制结构,是改变间接税"亲富性"和强化税收扶贫职能的有效措施。     

中国城镇家庭的资产配置与消费行为:理论与证据

根据流动性资产和非流动性资产的配置组合,家庭可以分为P-HtM(贫穷月光族)、W-HtM(富裕月光族)、P-nHtM(贫穷非月光族)和W-nHtM(富裕非月光族)四类,他们表现出各自不同的消费特征。利用中国家庭金融调查2011年至2017年四轮数据,我们发现中国城镇家庭中四种类型的占比分别为6.8%、36.7%、6.6%和49.9%;在消费—收入弹性上,P-HtM和W-HtM家庭显著高于W-nHtM家庭,而P-nHtM家庭显著低于W-nHtM家庭;在暂时性收入冲击的边际消费倾向上,P-HtM和W-HtM家庭大于W-nHtM家庭,而P-nHtM家庭小于W-nHtM家庭。这些发现意味着,若要取得更好的消费刺激效果,需要更加精准的消费刺激政策。     

“加剧”还是“缓解”：政府转移支付与农户家庭未来减贫——基于贫困脆弱性视角的实证分析

基于2018年CFPS数据和Logit模型分析政府转移支付对农户家庭贫困脆弱性的影响及异质性。研究表明：政府转移支付总体上对农户家庭贫困脆弱性并未产生积极的改善效果,反而进一步促进了农户家庭贫困脆弱性增加。从区域异质性看,政府转移支付对贫困脆弱性的正向促进作用主要体现在中、西部地区,并且以中部地区尤为明显。从家庭特征看,政府转移支付主要促使收入贫困农户、非融资约束农户、非土地流转农户、非组织参与农户家庭贫困脆弱性增加,并且对绝对贫困农户的促进效应要大于相对贫困农户。对非收入贫困户、土地流转户和组织参与户家庭贫困脆弱性的影响不显著。从户主特征看,政府转移支付主要对户主健康家庭、自雇户主家庭的贫困脆弱性产生正向促进效应,对稳定受雇户主家庭贫困脆弱性的影响不显著。     

对贵州省普惠金融发展情况的调查与思考

贵州省是全国贫困面最广、贫困程度最深,扶贫开发任务最重、难度最大的省份之一。按照人均纯收入2300元的扶贫标准,全省还有1149万贫困人口,大力开展普惠金融工作对于贵州具有现实意义。本文对贵州省普惠金融发展情况进行了调研,分析其中存在的问题,为下一步开展工作提供政策建议。     

北京城市贫困家庭生活状况及社会支持网络研究

贫困问题是一个世界性的问题,也一直是各国政府和学术界关注的重要领域。近年来,由于我国社会的大转型和经济体制的转轨,使北京市居民的收入水平和实际生活水平大大提高。但是由于收入差距的拉大,造成了北京城区相对贫困问题日益突出;另外,由于经济转轨造成我市大批企业职工下岗、待岗和失业,家庭收入受到严重影响,从而使得北京市的新贫困人口大大增加。经过思考,笔者从北京市贫困家庭的收入、食品、衣着、医疗、子女教育和社会交往等方面出发,结合贫困家庭自身存在的问题,提出切实可行的措施和对策,呼吁全社会关心、帮助贫困家庭,使其尽快摆脱贫困。同时,进一步了解北京市政府所制定的最低生活保障制度和社会救助制度的落实情况及受助家庭对这些政策的满意程度,并提出改进的对策和建议。     

Who is Not Poor? Dreaming of a World Truly Free of Poverty

When the World Bank dreams of "a world free of poverty," whatshould it be dreaming? In measuring global income or consumptionexpenditure poverty, the World Bank has widely adopted the $1a day standard as a lower bound. Because this standard is basedon poverty lines in the poorest countries, anyone with incomeor expenditures below this line will truly be poor. But thereis no consensus standard for the upper bound of the global povertyline: above what level of income or expenditures is someonetruly not poor? This article proposes that the World Bank computeits lower and upper bounds in a methodologically equivalentway, using the poverty lines of the poorest countries for thelower bound and the poverty lines of the richest countries forthe upper bound. The resulting upper bound global poverty linewould be 10 times higher than the current lower bound and atleast 5 times higher than the currently used alternative lowerbound of $2 a day. And in tracking progress toward a world freeof poverty, the World Bank should compute measures of globalpoverty using a variety of weights on the depth and intensityof poverty for a range of poverty lines between the global lowerand upper bounds. For instance, rather than trying to artificiallyforce the global population of 6.2 billion (a billion is 1,000million) into just two categories "poor" and "not poor," withthe new range of poverty lines the estimates would be that 1.3billion people are "destitute" (below $1 a day), another 1.6billion are in "extreme poverty" (above $1 a day but below $2dollar a day), and another 2.5 billion are in "global poverty"(above extreme poverty but below the upper bound poverty line).      

数字金融发展是否存在马太效应？——贫困户与非贫困户的经验比较

数字普惠金融发展是否存在马太效应,贫困户和非贫困户之间的收入不平等是否会因此而加剧值得深入研究。基于中国劳动力动态调查和北京大学数字普惠金融指数,从数字金融的覆盖广度和使用深度来考察数字金融发展是否存在马太效应及其作用机制。结果表明:贫困户可借助数字金融平滑生存型消费和积累发展型要素,但效果并不显著,而非贫困户在有效利用数字金融功能防范风险、平滑消费、积累要素的同时,还能休闲娱乐,数字金融发展的马太效应明显;不同数字金融产品的马太效应具有显著差异,数字征信的效应最大,数字信贷、数字支付次之;数字金融发展对不同收入差距类型的影响具有显著异质性,对经营性收入差距的影响最为明显。本文为研究数字普惠金融提供了新的视角,可为未来数字金融缩小收入差距政策的制定提供有益参考。     

Can Micro Health Insurance Reduce Poverty? Evidence From Bangladesh

This article examines the impact of micro health insurance on poverty reduction in rural areas of Bangladesh. The research is based on household‐level primary data collected from the operating areas of the Grameen Bank during 2006. A number of outcome measures are considered; these include household income, stability of household income via food sufficiency and ownership of nonland assets, and the probability of being above or below the poverty line. The results show that micro health insurance has a positive association with all of these indicators, and this is statistically significant and quantitatively important for food sufficiency.     

Mental Health Patterns and Consequences: Results from Survey Data in Five Developing Countries

The social and economic consequences of poor mental health inthe developing world are presumed to be significant, yet remainunderresearched. This study uses data from nationally representativesurveys in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Indonesia, and Mexico andfrom special surveys in India and Tonga to show similar patternsof association between mental health and socioeconomic characteristics.Individuals who are older, female, widowed, and report poorphysical health are more likely to report worse mental health.Individuals living with others with poor mental health are alsosignificantly more likely to report worse mental health themselves.In contrast, there is little observed relation between mentalhealth and consumption poverty or education, two common measuresof socioeconomic status. Indeed, the results here suggest insteadthat economic and multidimensional shocks, such as illness orcrisis, can have a greater impact on mental health than poverty.This may have important implications for social protection policy.Also significant, the associations between poor mental healthand lower labor force participation (especially for women) andmore frequent visits to health centers suggest that poor mentalhealth can have economic consequences for households and thehealth system. Mental health modules could usefully be addedto multipurpose household surveys in developing countries. Finally,measures of mental health appear distinct from general subjectivemeasures of welfare such as happiness.     

The distributional impact of access to finance on poverty: evidence from selected countries in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper uses pooled household-level data from thirteen Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries conducted between 2014 and 2018 to examine the impact of access to finance on household wealth. The few studies that investigated this relationship in the past apply a linear estimation, and thus inadvertently assume a uniformly distributed effect across all levels of poverty. This study examines the heterogeneous impact of access to finance along the entire wealth distribution line using a Re-centered Influence Function (RIF) regression model. We adopt a unique approach to this research problem by constructing an asset-based wealth-index for each country, and use it as a proxy for poverty, and thus get around the problem of non-reported and bracket income. Further, to eliminate potential endogeneity, an instrumental variable quantile approach is implemented. Results indicate that the unconditional effect of access to finance on poverty is non-homogenous. The effect is higher at higher quantiles of wealth and very low at the bottom of the wealth index, suggesting that the extension of formal financial services disproportionately benefits wealthier households more than the very-poor categories.     

Macro and Micro Perspectives of Growth and Poverty in Africa

This article reviews trends in poverty, economic policies, andgrowth in a sample of African countries during the 1990s, drawingon the better household data now available. Experiences havevaried. Some countries have seen sharp drops in income poverty,whereas others have witnessed marked increases. In some countriesoverall economic growth has been pro-poor and in others not.But the aggregate numbers hide systematic distributional effects.Taking both macro and micro perspectives of growth and povertyin Africa, the article draws four key conclusions. First, economicpolicy reforms (improving macroeconomic balances and liberalizingmarkets) appear conducive to reducing poverty. Second, marketconnectedness is crucial to enable participation in the gainsfrom economic growth. Some regions and households by virtueof their remoteness were left behind when growth picked up.Third, education and access to land emerge as key private endowmentsto help households benefit from new economic opportunities.Finally, rainfall variations and ill health have profound effectson poverty outcomes, underscoring the significance of socialrisk management in poverty reduction strategies in Africa.     

The Demand for Life Insurance: An Application of the Economics of Uncertainty

Financial economists typically assume that capital income uncertainty, derived from investments in uncertain returned marketable securities, represents the major source of household consumption uncertainty. But, for many households, if not most, labor income uncertainty dominates capital income uncertainty. This study analyzes households optimal reactions to labor income (human capital) uncertainty that is derived from the possibility of their wage earners' non–survival. By introducing a risk resolution mechanism—an insurance market—and allowing for the possibility that future tastes may be state–dependent, simple demand–for–insurance equations are mathematically derived to explicitly describe households optimal responses to human capital uncertainty.