Asset versus consumption poverty and poverty dynamics in rural Ethiopia

Several studies have shown conceptually that assets form a more robust basis for identifying the poor than do flow variables like expenditures or income. Asset‐based poverty classification can be used to distinguish structural from stochastic poverty and can enable projection of poverty dynamics through time. Nonetheless, little work has empirically compared poverty measurement based on assets and expenditures to indicate the practical implications of the choice of poverty measure. This article uses panel data (between 1994 and 2004) from Ethiopia to generate asset‐ and expenditures‐based poverty classifications. Asset dynamics are then explored to test for the existence of multiple asset index equilibria that could constitute evidence of poverty traps. Results provide evidence of multiple equilibria and show that the asset‐based poverty classifications predict future asset and expenditures poverty status more accurately than expenditures‐based measures. The findings confirm that the asset‐based measure could be used to more carefully target poverty interventions.     

收入流动性与贫困的动态发展:基于中国农村的经验分析

本文利用1988—2003年CHNS的5轮农村家庭收入调查数据,对中国农村贫困的动态发展进行了经验分析。研究发现:中国农村贫困的状态更多的是一种暂时性的贫困,而且中国农村存在着较高程度的脱离贫困与进入贫困并存的现象;不同收入阶层的贫困(或非贫困)家庭在脱离(或进入)贫困的可能性上存在明显的差别,同时绝大多数的贫困家庭在脱贫后都进入了较高的收入阶层,而大多数情况下非贫困家庭在进入贫困后都分布在离贫困线较近的收入阶层;贫困家庭在脱贫后并不具有较强的维持非贫困状态的能力,同时,刚进入贫困的家庭与之前一直处于贫困状态的家庭在脱贫的机会上并没有明显的差异。     

Asset‐based poverty transition and persistence in rural China

This article tests empirically for transition and persistence of poverty in rural China based on the theory of asset‐based poverty traps. It proposes an analytical framework mitigating the problem of endogenous switching between accumulation regimes and disentangling the true state‐dependence of poverty. Specifically, a dynamic asset threshold separating households into downward and upward mobility regimes is identified after taking households’ unobserved characteristics and observed regime‐differentiated accumulation strategies into account. The static analysis identifies causality running from settling into a downward mobility regime to the probability of poverty measured by consumption. Furthermore, allowing for endogenous initial poverty status, the dynamic analysis finds strong true state‐dependence in poverty. Households with the same characteristics are nearly twice as likely to be poor as if they had not previously switched to the accumulation regime. Assets below the dynamic threshold serve as a conduit through which poverty propagates itself. Factors that help to break this vicious circle are identified.     

Did the commodity price spike increase rural poverty? Evidence from a long‐run panel in Bangladesh

We assess the effects of the dramatic rise in agricultural commodity prices during 2007–2008 on income dynamics and poverty among rural households in Bangladesh. A unique panel data set allows us to put the effects of recent events in the context of long‐run trends in income and poverty. We use data from a nationally representative longitudinal survey of rural households in Bangladesh collected in four waves in 1988, 2000, 2004, and 2008. Nargis and Hossain (Nargis, N., Hossain, M., 2006. Income dynamics and pathways out of rural poverty in Bangladesh, 1988–2004. Agric. Econ. 35, 425–435) analysed income dynamics and poverty incidence for the first three waves, finding a declining trend in both the incidence and severity of poverty, aided in particular by human capital development and off‐farm employment opportunities. We update and extend the analysis to include data collected in 2008, at the height of a spike in agricultural prices. We find that the price of a balanced food basket increased by more than 50% during 2000–2008, while household income rose only 15%. As a result the incidence and severity of rural poverty in Bangladesh sunk to pre‐2000 levels during 2004–2008. Thus, the price spikes in 2007–2008 helped push an additional 13 million people into poverty in rural Bangladesh. Moreover, we find that the determinants of poverty have not been time‐invariant. In particular, agricultural production, which had previously been associated with a higher incidence of poverty, served as a hedge against higher food prices during 2004–2008.     

精准扶贫政策对城乡居民收入差距的影响研究——以山西省为例

[目的]实施精准扶贫政策以来,我国共减少贫困人口6 853万人。在脱贫攻坚取得重大进展的背景下,对比政策实施前后城乡居民收入的变化,对于揭示精准扶贫政策的作用具有重要意义。[方法]以贫困范围广、贫困程度深的山西省为对象,基于2010—2017年精准扶贫政策实施前后的统计数据,采用双重差分模型研究不同贫困程度县(区)城乡居民收入差距变化。[结果]精准扶贫政策的效果主要为:贫困县的城乡居民收入差距缩小幅度约为非贫困县的3倍,而其中国家级贫困县的收入差距缩小幅度约为省级贫困县的2倍;共同趋势检验和安慰剂检验的结果验证了模型的稳健性。对比采用最小二乘法(OLS)得到的精准扶贫政策效果,揭示出如果忽略城乡居民收入差距随时间的变化,则会高估精准扶贫政策效果约1.5～4倍,再次证明模型的有效性。通过引入控制变量探讨政策以外的其他影响因素,发现城镇化水平、经济发展水平、第三产业占比、人均农业产值有助于缩小城乡居民收入差距,人均土地状况会扩大城乡居民收入差距,固定资产投资和消费水平的影响不显著。[结论]精准扶贫政策对于缩小城乡居民收入差距具有显著效果,且对深度贫困地区的影响更明显。     

基于生活水平维度的县级贫困度量研究——以武陵片区北部为例

提高贫困人口瞄准和识别的准确度是农村扶贫开发需要解决的首要问题,近年来从多个角度进行多维贫困的精准度量与分析成为国内外扶贫领域的研究热点。该研究以Sen的能力方法理论为基础,以Alkire和Foster的多维贫困指数(MPI)测算指标体系为参考,结合研究区实际情况,建立了生活水平维度贫困指标体系,利用武陵片北部11个县的贫困农户调查数据进行了基于"A-F"双临界值法的县级贫困人口量算,并通过"维度加总-分解"算法进行了空间分异分析。结果显示:生活水平维度中通电与资产指标对研究区贫困发生率和多维贫困指数影响最小,燃料类型指标影响最大;11个县贫困程度由大到小依次为:巴东县石柱土家族自治县秭归县建始县来凤县恩施市鹤峰县利川市丰都县咸丰县黔江区;依据房屋结构、燃料类型、饮水情况3个指标可将11个县分为甲乙丙3种类型,不同类型县的主要致贫因素不同,当地政府应根据各县具体情况采取差异化扶贫政策。     

Implications of higher global food prices for poverty in low‐income countries1

In many poor countries, the recent increases in prices of staple foods have raised the real incomes of those selling food, many of whom are relatively poor, while hurting net food consumers, many of whom are also relatively poor. The impacts on poverty will certainly be very diverse, but the average impact on poverty depends upon the balance between these two effects, and can only be determined by looking at real‐world data. Results using household data for 10 observations on nine low‐income countries show that the short‐run impacts of higher staple food prices on poverty differ considerably by commodity and by country, but that poverty increases are much more frequent, and larger, than poverty reductions. The recent large increases in food prices appear likely to raise overall poverty in low‐income countries substantially.     

Poverty targeting, resource degradation and heterogeneous endowments—a micro-simulation analysis of a less-favored Ethiopian village

Persistent and widespread poverty in less-favored areas (LFAs) is attributed to fragile natural resources and poor markets. Limited assets may keep households outside the reach of poverty policies targeted at LFAs. We explored in a stylized manner the role of heterogeneous household assets for (1) policies aimed at poverty reduction; (2) within-village income inequality; and (3) soil erosion. With a farm-household micro-simulation model we analyzed for each household in a remote Ethiopian village three sets of policies: technology improvement, infrastructure investment, and off-farm employment through migration or cash for work (CFW) programs. Combating poverty with a single policy, migratory off-farm employment reduces the poverty headcount most. Because of self-selection, CFW programs performed best in terms of reaching the poorest of the poor. CFW also reduced within-village income inequality most, while a price band reduction increased income inequality. Only technology improvements resulted in a trade-off between poverty and soil erosion. Price band and off-farm employment policies reduced erosion while outperforming technology improvements in terms of poverty reduction. We found that combining two policies was most helpful in assisting poorer households to overcome the limitations of their asset endowments. A CFW program combined with reduced price bands yielded most in terms of poverty reduction and income inequality. This policy complementarity is, however, less important for better-endowed households. Reducing the reliance of households on agriculture offered a win-win situation of reducing poverty and maintaining natural resources. Combining policies helped to overcome asset limitations, to target policies to the poorest households and to reduce income inequalities.     

精准扶贫背景下扶贫资产管理的实践与机制创新

[目的]脱贫攻坚战略实施以来,各地区形成和沉淀了大量的农业、产业扶贫项目资产,而扶贫资产管理作为持续发挥项目效益、巩固脱贫质量的重要抓手,试点地区实践情况亟待加以梳理与分析。[方法]文章在文献梳理的基础上以流程化管理理论为切入点,探讨了扶贫资产内涵及部分试点地区实施现状,在解析问题的基础上构建扶贫资产"七步法"的流程化管理模式。[结果]部分试点地区积极探索扶贫资产管理模式并取得了一定的成效;但部分地区仍存在产权界定不清晰、收益分配不合理、监管不到位等问题,而完善扶贫资产管理机制能够有效解决"管什么"和"怎么管"的难题,进一步实现管理效率的提升。[结论]各地区应坚持以人为本、因地制宜的原则,积极探索并实施差异化的扶贫资产管理模式,切实提升扶贫资产管理效率为实现与乡村振兴的有效衔接奠定基础。     

Does a “Blue Revolution” help the poor? Evidence from Bangladesh

The rapid growth in aquaculture production, globally and in Bangladesh is well documented. Over 2000–2010, per capita production of aquaculture grew 76%, while the consumer price of fish declined 45%. Previous studies have suggested pro‐poor effects of aquaculture based on fish production and consumption patterns. This study attempts to quantify the contribution of aquaculture to income growth and poverty reduction in Bangladesh, using household survey data and a microsimulation approach based on an expanded version of Deaton's concept of net benefit ratio. We estimate that aquaculture's contribution to income growth between 2000 and 2010 was 2.1%, including both price and quantity effects. This income growth was translated into poverty reduction of 1.7 percentage points. Although these estimates seem small, they represent almost 10% of the overall poverty reduction in Bangladesh during the first decade of the 21st century. Put differently, of the 18 million Bengalis who escaped poverty during 2000–2010, about 1.8 million of them managed to do so because of the rapid growth in aquaculture, which contributed to rural income while making fish more accessible to consumers.     

Health and hunger: nutrient response to income depending on caloric availability in Nepal

Using data from NLSS III, we estimate nutrient‐income elasticities for macronutrients, vitamins, and minerals. We further allow for differential nutrient demand response to income depending on where a household is in the caloric availability distribution. We find that some nutrients are income inelastic indicating that they are necessity goods while others are relatively income elastic. We further test and reject equivalent nutrient‐income elasticities across the caloric availability distribution. Households in the lowest calorie quintile have highly income elastic nutrient demand leaving them vulnerable to income fluctuations. Moreover, as households meet their first‐order caloric needs, they substitute away from cheap calorie‐dense staples toward more expensive nutrient‐dense foods. Finally, for most nutrients, households in the highest calorie quintile exhibit more elastic nutrient demand, similar to households in the lowest quintile. Our results suggest that policies aimed at improving income will likely also improve household nutrient availability, particularly for the most calorie poor households. They further suggest that policies aimed at protecting poor households from negative income shocks will also likely yield nutritional benefits.     

Pro‐Poor Tourism as a Strategy to Fight Rural Poverty: A Critique

Pro‐poor tourism (PPT) is a development methodology that aims to use tourism as a tool for poverty reduction. PPT has been adopted by multilateral institutions, official development agencies and non‐governmental organizations (NGOs). PPT assumes an absolute definition of poverty that is based on net income. This definition allows the consideration of a tourism initiative as ‘pro‐poor’ even though the income earned by the poor population may be marginal. This paper analyses whether PPT's concept of poverty adequately addresses the issues in rural poverty. We analyse one case of unequal distribution of income generated from tourism in the 1990s (Amantaní Island, Perú). The paper concludes that PPT's concept of poverty circumvents the fact that an unequal distribution of income could imply a loss in the quality of life for the majority of a rural population: the high‐income social sector tends to increase its economic and political power to the detriment of other social sectors.     

Effects of Non‐Farm Employment on Rural Income Inequality in Developing Countries: An Investment Perspective

This paper makes several points based on a review of household survey evidence from Africa, Asia and Latin America. (i) In contrast to conventional wisdom, the evidence is very mixed as to the effect of non‐farm employment on rural income inequality. The non‐farm employment and microenterprise programmes now in vogue will not necessarily resolve rural income inequality problems and attendant social tensions nor automatically benefit the poor. (ii) Policymakers should be worried by substantial evidence of poor people's inability to overcome important entry barriers to many non‐farm activities. (iii) The main determinants of unequal access to non‐farm activities are the distribution of capacity to make investments in non‐farm assets and the relative scarcity of low capital entry barrier activities. Therefore, it is crucial for public investments and policy to favour an increase in the access of the poor to assets that allow them to overcome non‐farm employment entry barriers, (iv) It would be an error to assume that one can address asset‐poverty and inequality in the non‐farm sector without addressing farm‐side problems and vice versa.     

农村居民储蓄率与收入差距、贫困减缓之间的关系——基于VAR模型的实证研究

基于1990-2018年的各项数据,通过VAR模型,分析了农村居民的储蓄率与贫困减缓、收入差距之间的关系。结果表明:贫困减缓对农村居民的储蓄率的影响较大,收入差距对储蓄率的影响逐渐上升并保持平稳,此外,储蓄率的降低在一定程度会反作用于贫困减缓,而贫困减缓也会对收入差距产生较大的影响。最后,针对研究成果给出一定的建议。     

The Adoption of Genetically Modified Cotton and Poverty Reduction in Pakistan

This article employs a propensity score‐matching approach to examine the direct effects of adoption of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton on yields, pesticide demand, household income and poverty, using cross‐sectional data from a survey of farmers in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Generally, the findings reveal that adoption of the new technology exerts a positive and significant impact on cotton yields, household income and poverty reduction, and a negative effect on the use of pesticides. The positive and significant impact of the technology on yields and household income is consistent with the potential role of new agricultural technology in directly reducing rural poverty through increased farm household income.     

The impact of migration on rural poverty and inequality: a case study in China

Large numbers of agricultural labor moved from the countryside to cities after the economic reforms in China. Migration and remittances play an important role in transforming the structure of rural household income. This article examines the impact of rural‐to‐urban migration on rural poverty and inequality in a mountainous area of Hubei province using the data of a 2002 household survey. Since migration income is a potential substitute for farm income, we present counterfactual scenarios of what rural income, poverty, and inequality would have been in the absence of migration. Our results show that, by providing alternatives to households with lower marginal labor productivity in agriculture, migration leads to an increase in rural income. In contrast to many studies that suggest that the increasing share of nonfarm income in total income widens inequality, this article offers support for the hypothesis that migration tends to have egalitarian effects on rural income for three reasons: (1) migration is rational self‐selection—farmers with higher expected return in agricultural activities and/or in local nonfarm activities choose to remain in the countryside while those with higher expected return in urban nonfarm sectors migrate; (2) households facing binding constraints of land supply are more likely to migrate; (3) poorer households benefit disproportionately from migration.     

Poverty and its many dimensions: The role of income as an indicator

Abstract

In this paper we analyse the choice of the dimension in which poverty is to be measured by reviewing some implications arising from the debate on the concept of welfare. By discussing Sen's capability approach, in particular, it is suggested that income or consumption are not necessarily the only indicators of interest in a poverty analysis. We then explore how comprehensive a picture of poverty can be gained by focusing on an income‐based measure, using Chilean data from 1992. We analyse the role of income both as having a direct impact on a set of indicators of well‐being and as proxying the relevant factors affecting them. In both cases the link is found to be weak. This suggests that poverty analysis is highly conditional on the indicators chosen and that the approach should be kept as broad as possible in order to capture more fully the multidimensional nature of such a complex phenomenon.     

Vulnerability,shocks and persistence of poverty: estimates for semi‐arid rural South India

This paper focuses on the vulnerability of rural households to poverty when a negative crop shock occurs. The analysis is based on the ICRISAT panel survey of households in a semi‐arid region in south India during 1975–84. Using a dynamic panel data model that takes into account effects of crop shocks, an assessment of vulnerability of different groups of households is carried out. What is somewhat surprising is that even sections of relatively affluent households are highly vulnerable to long spells of poverty when severe crop shocks occur. As such crop shocks are frequent in a harsh production environment, there must be a shift of emphasis in anti‐poverty measures from meeting income shortfalls among the poor to enabling the vulnerable to protect themselves better against these shocks.     

衔接过渡期扶贫资产差异化治理研究

扶贫资产的衍生主要与扶贫行为和扶贫资金投入相关。根据资金投入领域的不同,扶贫资产进一步分化为政府资产、村集体资产、贫困户家庭资产及组合型资产等。由于资产类型的多样化,"差异化治理"成为实现扶贫资产有效治理的重要保障。应从晰化产权主体、细化责任主体、优化管理方式、活化资产使用、具化收益分配入手,推进扶贫资产差异化治理,确保治理有效。