Price hike of staple food,nutritional impact and consumption adjustment: evidence from the 2005–2010 rice price increase in rural Bangladesh

This paper studies the nutritional impact of the rice price increase between 2005 and 2010 on households in rural Bangladesh and their resulting adjustment in consumption of rice, non-rice food and non-food items. We compare net rice buyers, who suffer from a negative income effect, with self-sufficient households that do not suffer from any such effect. Our findings indicate that rural households in Bangladesh cope well with the surge in the domestic rice price as indicated by the absence of any effect on their calorie intake and dietary diversity. In fact, both types of households similarly change their consumption of rice, non-rice grain, pulses, protein, fruits and other items. Furthermore, we do not find any evidence of buyers’ switching towards low-quality items in a food group. In a separate analysis, we compare net rice sellers with self-sufficient households and arrive at a similar conclusion. In both cases, income plays a crucial role in the consumption of non-rice food and non-food items, indicating the importance of effective income support programs at the time of price shocks in staple food items.     

物价波动、收入增长和地区差距对中国贫困线的影响

我国贫困线的增长机制是只与物价挂钩,不与收入挂钩。由于食品价格增长高于消费价格指数增长,这种调整机制导致贫困线绝对购买力下降;同时,随着收入的快速增长,贫困线相对购买力急剧下降。另外,贫困线与地区经济发展水平高度相关,造成地区间受助穷人的生活质量相差巨大。     

Sen measures of poverty in the United States: Cash versus comprehensive incomes in the 1990s

Recently developed statistical inference procedures for the Sen index and its components – the headcount, income gap and Gini index among the poor – are used to test explicit hypotheses concerning aggregate poverty in the United States for the period 1989 to 1997. Changes in Sen measures of poverty are investigated for cash and comprehensive income using the official poverty line and six additional poverty lines drawn using thresholds set at 50, 75, 125, 150, 175 and 200 percent of the official level. The paper also reports on the effects of using comprehensive income on subgroup poverty rates and on the demographic composition of the poor.     

A preliminary theoretical examination of the targeted public distribution system in India

A theoretical model of targeting in the public distribution system is set out. In any system of targeting there could be inclusion and exclusion errors. These errors could be reduced by search by the state. The state aims to minimise the costs of food administration subject to keeping the magnitude of the exclusion error bounded. Targeting involves a consideration of the objective poverty level, the official poverty level and the targeted poverty level by the state. The targeted poverty level could be less than the official poverty level if the extent of search is not adequate. The objective poverty level is an increasing function of the above poverty line issue price of food due to exclusion errors, a decreasing function of the procurement price of food and by definition the below poverty line issue price of food. The instruments in the hands of the state are the official poverty level, the above poverty line issue price for food, the procurement price of food and the extent of search. The comparative static implications of the model are set out.     

WEALTH HOLDINGS AND POVERTY STATUS IN THE U.S.

Families below the poverty line are better off in terms of wealth than income. In 1962, the ratio of mean income between families below and above the poverty line is 0.19 and the ratio of mean wealth is 0.29. The corresponding ratios for 1983 are 0.16 and 0.19. On average, the elderly poor are better off in terms of wealth than the younger poor, particularly relative to their own income. However, the poor have become worse off in terms of wealth between 1962 and 1983, when their real income grew by 6 percent and their real wealth declined by 11 percent. The inclusion of pension and social security wealth in the household portfolio narrows the wealth gap between the poor and non-poor, particularly for families under 65 years of age. Alternative poverty rates are also calculated based on the inclusion of annuity flows from wealth in household income. The reduction in the poverty rate between 1962 and 1983, from 21 to 15 percent on the basis of the official rate, is considerably lower with these alternative definitions.     

Re-evaluating differences in poverty among central city,suburban, and nonmetropolitan areas of the US

Poverty in the United States varies greatly by location. The difference in poverty intensity among locations, however, has only been evaluated by the official poverty measure – the headcount ratio – which has several drawbacks. The official poverty statistics also suffer from use of a single, arbitrary poverty line. This paper uses a recently-developed distribution-sensitive measure of poverty and 1990 census data to reconsider the difference among central city, suburban, and nonmetropolitan poverty levels, as well as differences among US regions. Instead of using a single, arguable poverty line, this paper lets the poverty line vary over an income range so that conclusions are more robust. We check for significance of differences across locations by applying some recently-developed methods of statistical inference.     

Eating like which “Joneses?” an Iterative Solution to the Choice of a Poverty Line “Reference Group”

A standard method for calculating poverty lines (e.g. Ravallion, 1994) is not fully specified. The choice of the "reference population" for determining food baskets is left to the decision of the individual analyst. However, the poverty line can be quite sensitive to the real income of the reference group because the "quality" of the food basket—measured as the food expenditures per calorie—rises sharply with income. We propose that the reference group be centered on the poverty line. To address the obvious circularity problem in choosing a reference population at the poverty line to define the poverty line, we use an iterative approach. This iterative method provides a methodological anchor that fixes the reference group.     

RELATIVE OR ABSOLUTE POVERTY LINES: A NEW APPROACH

When measuring poverty over time analysts must choose the value of the income elasticity of the poverty line, which essentially determines whether an absolute or relative poverty line is being used. The choice of this parameter is ultimately a value judgement, but this paper suggests an approach which has some empirical basis. Borrowing from the life-style and deprivation approach to poverty, various dimensions of poverty and deprivation are identified and the income elasticity of these items is used as the income elasticity of the poverty line. Data from the 1987 and 1994 Irish Household Budget Surveys suggest an upper bound of 0.7 for this parameter. Poverty measures using a number of values of the income elasticity of the poverty line are presented and test statistics are presented to determine whether observed differences in poverty measures are statistically significant.     

FOOD NEEDS AND ABSOLUTE POVERTY IN URBAN SOUTH AMERICA

The minimum cost of an adequate diet, following food preferences, is estimated for families in ten South American cities in five countries, allowing for household composition by age and sex. The ratio of actual expenditure on food and beverages to this normative expenditure is then used to rank families in six classes, of which the bottom two correspond to absolute poverty, or to actual expenditure less than the estimated minimum. Three questions can then be explored: which families appear to be poor, on this measure? how do such families allocate their spending toward other items such as housing? and, does this indicator of poverty classify families in much the same way as other proposed measures? The results suggest some under-reporting of food spending in the poorest class, but otherwise the ratio of reported to normative spending gives good results, free from the errors in other parts of the budget and the arbitrariness of indicators which depend on socially-defined rather than physiological “needs.” Poor families tend to be large, with many children; to have many dependents per income recipient; to have male working members other than the head; to suffer unemployment of members other than the head; to have relatively low levels of schooling; and to show high density in housing. Even quite poor households spend appreciable amounts on housing and on education, while not satisfying all food needs; both kinds of spending increase rapidly as food requirements are met. There are no consistent relations between poverty and type of employment or the share of income attributed to the head. The data refer to 1966–69 and are highly comparable; all monetary estimates are in dollars of equal purchasing power.     

A Behavior‐Based Approach to the Estimation of Poverty in India

Estimates of poverty in India are crucial inputs for the understanding of world poverty, yet there is much disagreement about the numbers and the legitimacy of methods used to derive them. In this paper, we propose and justify an alternative approach to identify the poor, which uses the proportion of income spent on food. Our estimates have weaker data requirements than official methods, and they compare favorably with several validation tests. Most notably, households around our state poverty lines obtain their calories from similar sources, whereas this is not true of official poverty lines. We also find that rates of self‐reported hunger are higher in states that we classify as poor.     

International Market Access and Poverty in Argentina

This paper examines the impact of access to international agro‐manufacture markets on poverty in Argentina. Estimates from the literature suggest that expanded market access would cause the international price of Argentine exports of agro‐manufactures to increase by between 8.7% and 15.9%. I explore two poverty effects caused by these prices changes: on food expenditure and on wages. Using a household budget survey, I estimate the impact of higher food prices on the Argentine poverty line. Using a labor force survey, I estimate the responses of wages to changes in export prices. My main finding is that market access would cause poverty to decline in Argentina. From a national head count of 29.26%, the poverty rate would decline to between 28.28% and 28.80%. This means that between 161,000 and 343,000 Argentines would be moved out of poverty.     

The oil price increase and the alleviation of poverty: Income distribution in Caracas,Venezuela, in 1966 and 1975

Two Caracas household budget surveys are used to compare household and individual income distributions. Real 1975 incomes are derived from income-specific price indexes. Minimum food budgets define destitution and poverty levels. During 1966–1975 mean real income rose substantially, especially among the rich. The fraction poor declined markedly, but mean income did not rise for those remaining poor. The poor's share of income growth came entirely from reduction in the number of poor, and exceeded their 1966 income share. The poverty gap expanded with population growth but shrank in per capita terms and relative to total income.     

A regional analysis of food consumption in China

Two “laws” are used to describe the budget shares of staple food, other food, and non-food in 28 regions in China: Working's model, which describes the budget share of (total) food as a declining linear function of the logarithm of total consumption expenditure, and a second model that describes the ratio of the budget shares of staple and other food as a double-log function of total consumption expenditure. Staple food appears to be an inferior good in the richest regions but not in the other regions.     

THE SIZE AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE POVERTY GAP IN CANADA: A MICRO ANALYSIS OF VARIATIONS AMONG DEMOGRAPHIC GROUPS

Poverty is a much used term by politicians, economists, sociologists, the media and interest groups. Although there is some common consensus that the word poverty means some type of deprivation, there is a lack of comprehensive measures to quantify this term. Although deprivation can relate to a number of areas such as health and education, the focus in policy development has been aimed at economic deprivation or more specifically, income adequacy. Even in this perspective, the availability of comprehensive measures are limited. The United States is the only major industrial nation that has an official poverty line. Several unofficial poverty lines have been developed in Canada, but the poverty measures have not gone beyond head counts of people who fall below these lines. In an environment where the goal is to further progressive social development constrained by inadequate public resources, the emphasis has been on first directing scarce resources to those "most in need". To get a better perception of economic need, this paper provides a micro analysis of the size and distribution of the poverty gap so that meaningful comparisons can be made between demographic groups. The results of this analysis yield some interesting findings. For example, there are virtually no poor elderly couples and although there are a large number of poor single elderly, their income shortfalls are relatively small and are highly concentrated near the poverty line; the poverty rate among families with children is quite low but their incomes on average fall well below the poverty line and are widely dispersed; and single parents fare badly on all measures.     

A SYNTHESIS OF POVERTY LINE DEFINITIONS*

A fundamental point of discussion in poverty research is whether poverty is an absolute or a relative concept. If poverty is seen to be a situation of absolute deprivation, a poverty line will usually be defined to be independent of the general style of living in society. If poverty is considered to be a situation of relative deprivation, a poverty line will be defined in relation to the general style of living in society. The choice for one of these two approaches has important consequences for social policy, as absolute poverty may be reduced by economic growth, while relative poverty will only decrease when income inequality decreases. This paper suggests a poverty line definition that is not a priori meant to be either absolute or relative, but depends on the perception of poverty in society. If the poverty line is higher in countries with higher median income (as an indicator of “general style of living”) the poverty line is said to be relative; if the poverty line does not vary with median income, it is said to be absolute. The poverty line definition suggested appears to be a generalization of almost all well-known poverty line definitions. Poverty lines thus defined are estimated for eight European countries on the basis of a 1979 survey. The resulting lines appear to have an elasticity with respect to median income of 0.51, and hence can be said to be halfway on the scale between absolute and relative.     

Indicator targeting in a political economy: Leakier can be better

In LDCs, policymakers sometimes cannot observe income among the poor. One oft-proposed approach to redistribution is indicator targeting: targeting transfers on corrrelations between income and “indicators” like geography, gender, or occupation. We build a simple model in which maximizing poverty reduction from a fixed budget requires indicator targeting. Because insurance motives drive political support for redistribution, the budget depends on the degree of targeting. When middle income agents receive targeted transfers sufficiently rarely, introducing targeting reduces poor agents’ welfare. The converse holds when middle income agents receive targeted transfers sufficiently rarely, i.e. if the redis-tributive bucket is sufficiently leaky.     

POVERTY IN PRE-REFORM UZBEKISTAN: WHAT DO OFFICIAL DATA REALLY REVEAL?

Using 1989 household survey data, we investigate large differences in poverty measured with a conventional all-Union per capita income line between Uzbekistan, the largest Central Asian republic of the former U.S.S.R., and Ukraine as an example of a European republic. We show that (i) differences between the two countries in the distribution of household size is not the main explanation, (ii) undervaluation of agricultural income in kind understates the welfare of rural households, something of particular importance in Uzbekistan, and (iii) indicators of food consumption provide important additional information. Lessons are drawn for the measurement of poverty in post-Union Uzbekistan.     

Poverty, inequality, and growth in urban China, 1986–2000

Although urban China has experienced spectacular income growth over the last two decades, increases in inequality, reduction in social welfare provision, deregulation of grain prices, and increases in income uncertainty in the 1990s have increased urban poverty. Using a large repeated cross section household survey from 1986 to 2000, this study maps the changes in income, inequality, and poverty over the fifteen-year period and investigates the determinants of poverty. We find that the increase in poverty in the 1990s is associated with the increase in the relative food price and the need to purchase items that were previously provided free or at highly subsidized prices by the state, i.e., education, housing and medical care. In addition, the increased saving rate of poor households, which is due to an increase in income uncertainty, contributes significantly to the increase in poverty measured in terms of expenditure. Journal of Comparative Economics 33 (4) (2005) 710–729.     

THE EFFECT ON POVERTY STATUS IN ISRAEL OF CONSIDERING WEALTH AND VARIABILITY OF INCOME

This paper assesses the effects of including wealth and the variability of income on the incidence of poverty and the degree of income inequality in Israel. A special survey, which includes data on the wealth and income of a national sample of Israeli families in 1963–64 and 1964–65, allows us to go beyond measures based on current income alone.
The first section reviews earlier studies of poverty in Israel. The next section looks at poverty and inequality in terms of current income, current wealth, and a combined measure of income and wealth. The combined measure is the Hansen-Weisbrod measure (HW), which equals income plus the annuity value of wealth, assuming all wealth is just consumed at the time of death. It is interesting that, in spite of the much higher wealth inequality than income inequality, the HW measure was slightly more equally distributed than income. This result occurred because the annuity component made up a low share of the total HW measure and the correlation between income and wealth was well under 1. Although overall inequality and poverty were similar for income and HW measures, the incidence of poverty by subgroup depended on the measure used.
The final section presents a dynamic view of poverty and inequality. Year-to-year changes in poverty were substantial. Because of the use of a relative poverty concept and the rise in real incomes, the real income poverty line rose by 15 percent between 1963 and 1964. Still, of those in income poverty in 1963, 37 percent managed to escape poverty in 1964. The paper shows how the degree to which poverty was stable or transitory varied substantially by age and country of origin.     

Structural breaks in consumption patterns: India 1952-1991

This study improves upon the econometric modelling for testing and incorporating structural breaks for a study on Indian consumption patterns covering a period of four decades and also explores the causes of such breaks. The tests for structural breaks in consumption patterns indicate multiple break points which are not uniform across the population groups and also across commodity groups. Further, the results indicate for the first time, that the breaks could often be induced by the changes in the data collection methodology of the survey and not due to changes in consumer behaviour alone. Apart from this, there is a shift in the consumption pattern during the mid-1980s in both the rural and the urban sectors. For the lowest expenditure class the shift is away from food items with the rural sector showing a change in the price response and the urban sector showing a change in the total expenditure coefficient. For the middle and the upper expenditure classes the shifts are not only from the food items towards non-food items but also from the 'food' group that includes items like cereals, milk and milk products towards the 'other food' group which includes items like vegetables and fruits. Its causes are found to be changes in preferences as well as the income effect.