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。     

生态与经济发展的鸿沟

文章主要从词语来源与含义、研究对象的组织层次等方面系统地对比和阐述了生态学和经济学的接近或相似。生态学和经济学的学科性质和环境问题的日益严重决定了二者之间交叉学科的出现;经济学借鉴生态学,二者逐步走向融合。但由于＂生态＂是保守的,而＂经济＂是积极主动的,所以在经济与生态发展之间仍存在＂鸿沟＂。怎样处理和解决二者之间的矛盾,跨越＂鸿沟＂是摆在国内外学者们面前的一个重大课题。笔者认为,解决的途径仍应该是学科间的交融,这为科学研究提供了新的探索空间。     

The anatomy of fragile states in Sub‐Saharan Africa: Understanding the interrelationship between fragility and indicators of wellbeing

According to most classifications, Sub‐Saharan Africa is the region of the world with the highest presence of fragile states. In this paper we examine the relationship between fragility and poverty, suggesting that countries may become trapped in a vicious circle of fragility and low levels of wellbeing. We consider fragility as a continuum and begin by reviewing available measures. These show the high presence of fragility in Sub‐Saharan Africa and allow the more fragile countries to be identified. There is seen to be a strong association between fragility, poor growth performance, and lower wellbeing in Sub‐Saharan Africa. Building on the strong evidence for the two‐way relationship between economic growth and poverty, we present an analysis of how the vicious circle linking poorer welfare outcomes and fragility may be able to be broken. We argue that building successful institutions is key here, and this can be enabled by specific policy interventions that are both poverty reducing and productive.     

Fuzzy Chronic Poverty: A Proposed Response to Measurement Error for Intertemporal Poverty Measurement

A number of chronic poverty measures are now empirically applied to quantify the prevalence and intensity of chronic poverty, vis‐à‐vis transient experiences, using panel data. Welfare trajectories over time are assessed in order to identify the chronically poor and distinguish them from the non‐poor, or the transiently poor, and assess the extent and intensity of intertemporal poverty. We examine the implications of measurement error in the welfare outcome for some popular discontinuous chronic poverty measures, and propose corrections to these measures that seeks to minimize the consequences of measurement error. The approach is based on a novel criterion for the identification of chronic poverty that draws on fuzzy set theory. We illustrate the empirical relevance of the approach with a panel dataset from rural Ethiopia and some simulations.     

Well‐Being,Deprivation, and the Great Recession in the U.S.: A Study in A Multidimensional Framework

We study changes in social well‐being and deprivation in the U.S. during the Great Recession and the subsequent recovery. We outline an analytical framework for measuring well‐being and deprivation in a multidimensional fashion when data on achievement in each dimension is assumed to be ordinal and binary in nature. We use data from the American Community Survey between 2008 and 2015 and find that there was a decline in social well‐being and a rise in social deprivation in the U.S. during the recession followed by a reversal of trends during the recovery. Despite low deprivation levels among the White population, this population experienced the largest increase in deprivation during the recession and the least decline in deprivation in the recovery period. These results underscore the fact that the impact of recession and the subsequent recovery varied significantly across population groups.     

Inequality and Trade Policy: The Pro‐Poor Bias of Contemporary Trade Restrictions

This paper studies the pro‐poor bias of trade policy in India by estimating the household welfare effects of removing the current protection structure. The elimination of a pro‐poor trade policy is expected to have a negative differential welfare effect at the low end of the distribution. The paper first constructs trade restrictiveness indexes for household consumption items and industries using both tariffs and non‐tariff barriers. The results indicate that Indian trade policy is regressive through the expenditure channel as it disproportionately raises the cost of consumption for poorer households, while it is progressive through the earnings channel. Based on the net welfare effects, the elimination of the current trade protection structure is estimated to reduce inequality. These results indicate that a trade policy that is progressive through the earnings channel may induce a price effect that is regressive through the expenditure channel.     

India's Economic Reforms: Achievements and Next Steps

This paper reviews the impact of India's reforms since 1991 on the performance of the Indian economy. It shows that the reforms definitely achieved a significant acceleration in growth and they also succeeded in reducing poverty. However, they have been less successful in generating good quality jobs. There was progress in providing better access to education, health services ,and clean drinking water and sanitation, but less than was hoped. The area where performance has been most disappointing is environmental sustainability. The paper concludes by identifying some of the critical policy challenges in the years ahead.     

On the power of indicators: how the choice of fuel poverty indicator affects the identification of the target population

In light of the creation of the EU Energy Poverty Observatory (EPOV) in January 2018 and the increase in debates on how fuel poverty is measured, we propose a critical analysis of fuel poverty indicators and demonstrate that choosing a given indicator is central to the identification of the fuel-poorpopulation.

First, we conducted an inter-indicator analysis to show how profiles of fuel-poor households vary depending on the indicator selected. We designed a multidimensional approach based on a multiple correspondence analysis and a hierarchical and partitioning clustering analysis to study characteristics of fuel-poor households. We highlight the difficulty of identifying a fuel-poor ‘typical profile’ and show that the composition of the population depends on the choice of the indicator.

Second, we applied an intra-indicator analysis using two objective expenditure-based indicators with thresholds. In particular, we conducted a sensitivity analysis based on a logit model including variables describing household and dwelling characteristics. We show that the profiles of fuel-poor households as well as the drivers of fuel poverty vary considerably with the chosen threshold level.Given these findings, we stress the need to review how we currently rely on conventional fuel poverty indicators to identify target groups and give some recommendations.     

包容性金融发展与农村居民贫困减缓——基于全要素生产率视角的分析

本文用DEA—Malmquist指数法测算了全要素生产率指数,结合2006—2016年中国内地省际面板数据,基于全要素生产率视角,运用中介效应模型实证分析了包容性金融发展对农村居民贫困的影响。实证结果表明：（1）包容性金融发展能够通过全要素生产率的中介效应发挥减贫作用。（2）进一步的研究发现,包容性金融服务渗透度的提升对贫困的影响最为显著;同时,包容性金融发展可通过技术进步和效率提升作用来推动全要素生产率增长,进一步作用于贫困。（3）稳健性检验表明,我国东部与中西部地区包容性金融发展水平差异较大,对全要素生产率的提升乃至农村减贫的贡献表现出较大不平衡性。本文的政策建议为：首先,应持续推进包容性金融发展,充分发挥全要素生产率的中介效应,以更快实现2020年全面脱贫目标;其次,要继续加强农村金融基础设施建设,以实现金融服务均等性,充分发挥金融减贫的优势;最后,要合理配置金融资源,注重地区间发展的公平性,以实现经济社会均衡发展。     

基于区域一体化的生态经济发展研究—以京津冀北为例

打破冀北地区生态恶化与经济贫困的恶性循环,是京津冀实现可持续发展的关键.它要求相关行政区域在产业政策、生态治理上加强合作,在区域一体化的基础上发展生态经济.路径在于:通过水权交易和生态补偿,实现生态治理成本的共担;通过项目合作,构建生态型产业体系.基于区域一体化的生态经济发展还要求政府治理形态的嬗变,即从行政区经济和行政区行政转向区域公共治理.