Pauper Fiction in Economic Science: "Paupers in Almshouses" and the Odd Fit of Oliver Twist

The almshouse dominated the thinking about poverty and the poor during America's period of industrialization and its greatest economic downturns. Yet economists had surprisingly little to say about the facts of almshouse demography, and what they have written has been a rather bad fiction when seen in contrast with American novels. The main object of the paper is to delineate typical characters and characteristics of almshouses in America, and to examine the plausibility of various literary characterizations in light of the facts. The data certainly suggest new stories about paupers in American history: economists, and even the new social historians, have gotten it wrong. Between the Civil War and the Great Depression, the typical pauper living in an almshouse was not Oliver Twist (as many believe). He was not the Shiftless Man of the classical imagination (as Malthusians and Benthamites believe). The typical pauper of an American almshouse was plural. Instructive examples in American literature include Lennie, of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men ; Denver, of Toni Morrison's Beloved ; Mrs. Thomson, of Edward Eggleston's The Hoosier School-Master ; and Forrest Gump, of Winston Groom's Forrest Gump .     

Entrepreneurs' responses to semi-formal illegitimate institutional arrangements

While prior research has discussed how entrepreneurs deal with formal institutional voids and informal institutional environments, little is known about how entrepreneurs respond to institutional arrangements involving illegitimate actors. We define such arrangements as semi-formal illegitimate institutions. Using an exploratory study, we examine one such arrangement in Guatemala City, where organized crime dominates the institutional landscape in which entrepreneurs operate. We examine the strategic responses of these entrepreneurs, and find that they vary in the extent to which they resist semi-formal illegitimate institutions; some entrepreneurs engage in defiance, others avoid the illegitimate pressures, while others simply acquiesce. Upon further investigation, we find that the differences in entrepreneurs' network strength and network proximity, combined with their individual perception of threat and resource mobility, help to predict the different strategic responses.     

Toward a theory of transformative entrepreneuring: Poverty reduction and conflict resolution in Rwanda's entrepreneurial coffee sector

This study illustrates how entrepreneurship may catalyze prosperity as well as peace in entrenched poverty–conflict zones. We bring to life a conceptualization of transformative entrepreneuring by assessing interrelationships between poverty and conflict indicators from the perspective of rural dwellers in Rwanda's entrepreneurial coffee sector. Our findings suggest that individuals' perceptions of poverty alleviation and conflict reduction are sequentially linked, notably via increased quality of life. This enables us to advance theory on entrepreneuring by unpacking the mechanisms through which entrepreneurial processes may transform the lives of such ‘ordinary’ entrepreneurs in settings where economic and social value creation are desperately needed.     

Entrepreneurship as a solution to poverty

Individuals living in poverty remain a critical issue. This special issue focuses on how entrepreneurship can help to solve such poverty. Rather than viewing those in poverty as a market for goods, the solution lies in understanding how to help those living in poverty create their own businesses. Ultimately, entrepreneurship among those in poverty will create a long lasting solution to their poverty. Herein, we initially examine the extant knowledge about entrepreneurship. We then examine where future research on this important topic should move. Finally, we introduce the five articles that make up this special issue. These five articles came from the initial 71 submissions and enhance our knowledge about entrepreneurship as a pathway to reducing poverty.     

Endowment,industrial structure,and appropriate financial structure: a new structural economics perspective

Standard policy advice at times of fiscal adjustment is to protect public spending on the poor. However, the political economy of fiscal adjustment could well indicate the opposite direction, to protect the non‐poor from adjustment. This point is illustrated by three case studies based on research on social programs in Argentina, Bangladesh, and India, focusing on how targeting performance varied with aggregate outlays. The results suggest a tendency for program spending on the non‐poor that is protected from budget cuts.     

The impact of food price increases on caloric intake in China

World food prices have increased dramatically in recent years. We use panel data from 2006 to examine the impact of these increases on the consumption and nutrition of poor households in two Chinese provinces. We find that households in Hunan suffered no nutrition declines. Households in Gansu experienced a small decline in calories, though the decline is on par with usual seasonal effects. The overall nutritional impact of the world price increase was small because households were able to substitute to cheaper foods and because the domestic prices of staple foods remained low due to government intervention in grain markets.     

Introduction to the special issue on the role of nonfarm income in poverty reduction: evidence from Asia and East Africa

In this special issue, we present seven studies that collectively attempt to investigate the role of non‐farm income in long‐term and short‐term poverty reduction in Asia and Africa. The first four studies out of the seven use long‐term panel data over two decades in the Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh, and India. These studies show drastic increases in non‐farm income shares and corresponding declines in poverty levels over time, especially in the Philippines and Thailand. Education levels of household members and returns to education also increased significantly in these countries. The remaining three studies use cross‐sectional and short‐term panel data from Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda. These African studies show high proportions of poor households and low shares of non‐farm income that are somewhat comparable to the situation in the 1980s described in the Asian studies. Without the Green Revolution that provided stable farm income and potential financial resources to invest in children' education in Asia, it is not clear if African farm households can follow the Asian examples.     

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.     

反贫困与社会发展:关于农村扶贫开发的一个实证分析

;中国的贫困很大程度上就是农村的贫困.本文利用第一手的调查资料,从农民的生存状况和政策需求出发,探讨了农村贫困的原因、农村扶贫开发存在的问题以及农民对扶贫政策的期望,得出了农民迫切需要扶贫、扶贫需要注重开发、扶贫要顺应农民需求的结论.     

Poverty risk of the unemployed in six European countries: why is it higher in some countries than in others?

In all European countries unemployed persons face a high risk of relative poverty, but poverty rates vary greatly among EU countries. We analyse to what extent these differences could be explained by a different composition of the unemployed or by differences in the national income distribution functions. Our results indicate that the effects of individual characteristics on the poverty risk are roughly comparable between countries, but the composition of the unemployed is very different, which explains on average half of the cross-country differences in poverty rates.