sequential labor decisions under uncertainty an estimable household model of west african farmers this paper reports estimates of the structural parameters of a stochastic control model that describcs the labor decisions of small farmers in burkina faso west africa the focus of the estimation is on measuring flexibility in production and intertemporal substitutability in consumption full information maximum likelihood estimates of the primitive parameters of the model are computed even though optimal labor decision rules cannot be derived analytically vuong s non nested model specification test shows that this method yields parameter estimates that are superior to those derived by assuming that farmers solve a deterministic control problem the low levels of agricultural labor effort commonly observed in the survey area are shown to be a consequence both of the low productivity of labor in archaic rainfed agriculture and of farmers awareness that in the absence of a labor market overly ambitious production plans lead to seasonal manpower constraints to meet rainfed farmers concerns agricultural research institutes and extension services should factor flexibility into their research agendas

occupational choice and the process of development this paper models economic development as a process of institutional transformation by focusing on the interplay between agents occupational decisions and the distribution of wealth because of capital market imperfections poor agents choose working for a wage over self employment and wealthy agents become entrepreneurs who monitor workers only with sufficient inequality however will there be employment contracts otherwise there is either subsistence or self employment thus in static equilibrium the occupational structure depends on distribution since the latter is itself endogenous we demonstrate the robustness of this result by extending the model dynamically and studying examples in which initial wealth distributions have long run effects in one case the economy develops either widespread cottage industry self employment or factory production employment contracts depending on the initial distribution in the other example it develops into prosperity or stagnation

the impact of a carbon tax on the susquehanna river basin economy abstract this paper presents the first study of the economic impacts of a carbon tax on an environmentally delineated sub national area the study is based on a 32 sector computable general equilibrium model of the susquehanna river basin srb of the us a special feature of the analysis is that it incorporates changes in prices of traded goods facing the focal region as a result of the imposition of a tax imposed globally the results show that a tax of 16 96 per ton of carbon could have rather negligible negative impacts on the srb economy as a whole but that the negative impacts on its energy industries could be sizeable also several sensitivity tests on closure rules and key parameter values indicate that the results are rather robust

economic mobility and poverty dynamics in developing countries this study provides an introduction to this special issue of the journal of development studies on economic mobility and poverty dynamics in developing countries in addition to providing a conceptual framework it outlines how the contributions fit into the extant literature a series of regularities emerge across these studies the poor consist of those who are always poor poor at all dates and those who move in and out of poverty with the latter group tending to be strikingly large such movements in and out of poverty are apparent when looking at poverty in either absolute or relative terms changes in returns to endowments can be a potent source of increased incomes finally seemingly transitory shocks can have long term consequences the study concludes by drawing out the policy implications of these regularities

measuring lifetime poverty abstract this paper presents an axiomatic framework for measuring lifetime poverty over multiple periods for an individual we argue that lifetime poverty is influenced by both the snapshot poverty of each period and the poverty level of the permanent lifetime consumption it is also influenced by how poverty spells are distributed over the lifetime we axiomatically characterize classes of lifetime poverty indices and derive dominance conditions of poverty orderings for both individual and societal lifetime poverty measurements

intragenerational income mobility in latin america economic mobility has not been widely studied in developing countries until very recently owing to the lack of suitable data studying mobility requires longitudinal data tracking economic units that is individuals households or firms over time collecting this type of data is expensive and historically few latin american countries carried it out now however such data sets are available for a number of latin american and caribbean countries table a 1 in the appendix provides a list of available panel data sets that can be used for income mobility studies for these countries in this paper we discuss how the knowledge gleaned from mobility studies differs from comparable cross sectional analysis the structure of the paper is as follows the next section discusses what mobility is how it can be measured and how it differs from inequality the subsequent section reviews previous mobility studies in latin american countries the paper then summarizes the contributions of our own recent work and the final section discusses what lies ahead in mobility research for latin american economies

effects of family background on earnings and returns to schooling evidence from brazil we investigate whether omitted family background variables are responsible for high returns to schooling estimated in brazil returns to schooling fall by about one third when parental schooling is added to wage equations surprisingly the schooling of fathers in law has larger effects on wages than the schooling of fathers on the basis of a model of assortative mating we interpret this as evidence that parental characteristics represent unobservable worker attributes rather than nepotism in the labor market we conclude that the family background bias in returns to schooling is modest and need not imply returns to family connections

persistent expected and innate poverty estimates for semi arid rural south india 1975 1984 this paper uses nine years of panel data on 170 rural households in southern india to calculate intertemporal measures of poverty these include measures of 1 expected poverty that identify households likely to remain poor on average during any year 2 innate poverty that identify households that are poor owning to deep rooted characteristics that cannot easily be changed in the short run and 3 persistent poverty that identify households whose incomes fall below a fixed poverty line over a number of years the poverty rates estimated for the sample with the three measures are 61 percent 48 percent and 22 percent respectively c 1993 academic press inc copyright 1993 by oxford university press

the economics of poverty traps and persistent poverty an asset based approach abstract longitudinal data on household living standards open the way to a deeper analysis of the nature and extent of poverty while a number of studies have exploited this type of data to distinguish transitory from more chronic forms of income or expenditure poverty this paper develops an asset based approach to poverty analysis that makes it possible to distinguish deep rooted persistent structural poverty from poverty that passes naturally with time due to systemic growth processes drawing on the economic theory of poverty traps and bifurcated accumulation strategies this paper briefly discusses some feasible estimation strategies for empirically identifying poverty traps and long term persistent structural poverty as well as relevant extensions of the popular foster greer thorbecke class of poverty measures the paper closes with reflections on how asset based poverty can be used to underwrite the design of persistent poverty reduction strategies

are some groups more vulnerable to macroeconomic shocks than others hypothesis tests based on panel data from peru abstract which socio economic groups are most vulnerable to welfare declines during a macroeconomic shock after clarifying the difference between poverty and vulnerability this paper presents an analytical framework and applies it to panel data from peru major findings are 1 households with better educated heads are less vulnerable 2 female headed households are no more vulnerable than male headed households 3 households with more children are more vulnerable 4 transfer networks that assist the poor in relatively stable periods do not protect them during a major shock unless they originate from outside peru and 5 peru s social security program is targeted neither to vulnerable nor to poor households but other transfer programs are better targeted

slipping into and out of poverty the dynamics of spells this paper examines the dynamics of poverty previous analyses have examined either fluctuations in the male heads earnings or the frequency of poverty periods over a fixed time frame our approach depends on a definition of spells of poverty using this methodology we find that the majority of poor persons at any time are in the midst of a rather long spell of poverty the methodology also allows us to estimate that less than 40 percent of poverty spells begin because of a drop in the heads earnings while 60 percent of the spells end when the heads earnings increase thus researchers must focus on household formation decisions and on the behavior of secondary family members there has been a dramatic resurgence recently of discussion of the underclass the discussion is reminiscent of debates about poverty during the 1960s when the notions of a culture of poverty particularly as popularized by michael harrington s other america 1962 dominated both intellectual and policy thinking the idea of an underclass seems inconsistent however with much of the research on the dynamics of poverty during the 1970s that research using new longitudinal data seemed to show that the bulk of the poor were poor for only a few years the research also showed that the poor were a very heterogeneous group including a small minority of persistently poor the persistence of poverty is of interest both for understanding the phenomenon and for developing policy claims about dependency and separate life styles among the poor rest on assumptions about the long term nature of poverty questions

earnings mobility and measurement error a pseudo panel approach the degree of mobility in incomes is often seen as an important measure of the equality of opportunity in a society and of the flexibility and freedom of its labor market but estimation of mobility using panel data is biased by the presence of measurement error and non random attrition from the panel this paper shows that dynamic pseudo panel methods can be used to consistently estimate measures of absolute and conditional mobility in the presence of non classical measurement errors these methods are applied to data on earnings from a mexican quarterly rotating panel absolute mobility in earnings is found to be very low in mexico suggesting that the high level of inequality found in the cross section will persist over time however the paper finds conditional mobility to be high so that households are able to recover quickly from earnings shocks these findings suggest a role for policies which address underlying inequalities in earnings opportunities

welfare dynamics in rural kenya and madagascar this paper presents comparative qualitative and quantitative evidence from rural kenya and madagascar in an attempt to untangle the causality behind persistent poverty we find striking differences in welfare dynamics depending on whether one uses total income including stochastic terms and inevitable measurement error or the predictable structural component of income based on a household s asset holdings our results suggest the existence of multiple dynamic asset and structural income equilibria consistent with the poverty traps hypothesis furthermore we find supporting evidence of locally increasing returns to assets and of risk management behaviour consistent with poor households defence of a critical asset threshold through asset smoothing

exploring the impacts of a carbon tax on the chinese economy using a cge model with a detailed disaggregation of energy sectors abstract this paper applies a computable general equilibrium model to investigate the impacts of a carbon tax on china s economy and carbon emissions based on china s 2010 input output table to obtain robust simulation results we further disaggregate the energy sectors into eight departments according to energy use characteristics the empirical results indicate that a moderate carbon tax would significantly reduce carbon emissions and fossil fuel energy consumption and slightly reduce the pace of economic growth however a large carbon tax has a significantly negative impact on china s economy and social welfare moreover a large carbon tax would entail marked price changes in china of the fossil fuels in use reducing coal consumption would have the greatest impact on reducing carbon emissions and the ad valorem duty rate for coal would be the highest after levying a carbon tax because it has the highest carbon emission coefficient therefore china should strive to promote clean coal technology which may be crucial to reducing carbon emissions moreover levying a carbon tax would improve the use of clean energy which would be an effective means of reducing carbon emissions therefore the chinese government should formulate the regulations for and pass a carbon tax as early as possible to achieve its carbon emission abatement target and further contribute to mitigating climate change

do changes in the labour market take families out of poverty determinants of exiting poverty in brazilian metropolitan regions using survival models we test whether short term changes in the labour market affect poverty duration data are from the brazilian monthly employment survey such a monthly dataset permits more accurate estimations of events than using annual data but its panel follows households for a short period then methods that control for both right and left censoring should be used the results are as follows households with zero income are not those with the lowest chances of exiting changes in aggregate unemployment do not affect poverty duration and increasing wages in the informal sector has a negative effect on poverty duration

was vietnam s economic growth in the 1990s pro poor an analysis of panel data from vietnam abstractinternational aid agencies and almost all economists agree that economic growth is necessary for reducing poverty yet some economists question whether it is sufficient for poverty reduction vietnam enjoyed rapid economic growth in the 1990s but a modest increase in inequality during that decade raises the possibility that the poor in vietnam benefited little from that growth this article examines the extent to which vietnam s economic growth has been pro poor giving particular attention to two issues the first is the appropriate comparison group when comparing the poorest x of the population at two points in time should the poorest x in the first time period be compared to the poorest x in the second time period some of whom were not the poorest x in the first time period or to the same people in the second time period some of whom are no longer among the poorest x the second is measurement error estimates of growth among the poorest x of the population are likely to be biase

poverty in palanpur the meaning and identification of poverty are examined using three indicators of standard of living in the north indian village of palanpur the first is intended as a measure of apparent prosperity based on the personal assessments of investigators after intensive field work in the village over the full agricultural year 1983 84 the other two are income in 1983 84 and a measure of permanent income obtained by averaging incomes from four surveys conducted over a twenty six year interval a comparison of these three indicators shows that income measured in any one year may give a misleading impression of the incidence of poverty the risk of poverty for households is calculated vulnerability is high among low caste households and those which are involved in agricultural labor categories however are not homogeneous for example whereas the landless and widows are more likely to be poor some of such households are quite well off it is argued that poverty in a good agricultural year is a better indicator of sustained poverty than poverty in a bad year occupational mobility out of agricultural labor is low and changes in the distribution of land are largely accounted for by demographic processes such as household splits

national pro poor spending programmes and their effect on income inequality and poverty evidence from vietnam abstractthis article examines the causal effects of the national pro poor targeted programmes ntps on both poverty incidence and inequality in vietnam over the period 2002 2010 while the links between ntps and poverty alleviation and income inequality have previously been analysed independently this study is the first to offer a comprehensive analysis of ntps expenditure on poverty and inequality simultaneously applying the system generalized method of moments estimator to a panel of vietnamese regional data we are unable to establish that ntps have significantly mitigated poverty incidence however we estimate that ntps have significantly increased inequality we offer possible explanations why the ntps have resulted in these unintended outcomes and discuss potential policies which can reduce both poverty and inequality

the dynamics of livelihood diversification in post famine ethiopia abstract based on data for almost 300 households this paper explores associations among income diversification household perceptions of livelihood risks and changes in consumption outcomes across two points in time in post famine ethiopia four key questions are addressed i to what extent did households emerging from the famine period with relatively higher income and calorie consumption levels also have a more diversified income base ii was higher income diversification in 1989 associated with higher income and consumption levels by 1994 iii which households increased their share of income from non cropping activities most during the inter survey years and iv did household heads perceive a lack of non farm income activities to be an important risk factor in famine vulnerability we find that wealthier households tended to have more diversified income streams those initially more diversified subsequently experienced a relatively greater increase in both income and calorie intake households with a greater concentration of assets were more likely to fall in their relative outcome ranking as were female headed households and initially less diversified households subsequently realized greater gains in income diversification we also find suggestive evidence that personal perceptions of risk factors guided subsequent diversification decisions

estimation of poverty transition matrices with noisy data summary this paper investigates measurement error biases in estimated poverty transition matrices we compare transition matrices based on survey expenditure data to transition matrices based on measurement error free simulated expenditure the simulation model uses estimates that correct for measurement error in expenditure we find that time varying measurement error in expenditure data magnifies economic mobility roughly 45 of households initially in poverty at time t 1 are found to be out of poverty at time t using data from the korean labor and income panel study when measurement error is removed this drops to between 26 and 31 of households initially in poverty copyright 2016 john wiley sons ltd

prices credit markets and child growth in low income rural areas in this paper it is argued that fluctuations in child growth in rural areas of bangladesh during and after severe floods in i988 can provide insight into the structure of credit markets a model of intertemporal resource allocation is developed and euler equations relating growth patterns of children to the cost of borrowing by household are then derived from the model the evidence indicates that although some of the variation in growth patterns over the relevant period may be attributed to variation in illness and the price of rice growth patterns for children in landless households were influenced by credit market imperfections this paper links two prominent strands of research in economic development the first strand examines the extent to which households in poor rural economies are able to protect themselves from the adverse weather and other shocks that importantly influence earnings in underdeveloped areas while it has long been thought that credit market imperfections and other forms of market failure make it difficult for poor individuals in these economies to smooth consumption both within and across years there remains some question about the magnitude and pervasiveness of these imperfections while there is evidence that fluctuations in economic conditions result in inefficient allocation of resources e g morduch 1990 rosenzweig and wolpin i993 some recent papers have emphasised the fact that consumption patterns of households in the same village comove in a manner consistent with the idea that a substantial fraction of idiosyncratic variation in income is effectively

addressing the competitiveness effects of taxing carbon in china domestic tax cuts versus border tax adjustments abstract this study focuses on the international competitiveness effects of levying a carbon tax in china based on a computable general equilibrium model this study analysed the impacts of a carbon tax on different sectors from the aspect of changes in market shares of domestic producers in the domestic markets and changes in exports the effects of different measures including domestic tax cuts and border tax adjustments in alleviating the unfavourable competitiveness impacts were also analysed and compared as were the impacts of different tax schemes on the macro economy sectoral profits and carbon emissions the results show that without any complementary measures a carbon tax would negatively shock the domestic market shares and exports of almost all tradable sectors and the profits of almost all sectors as for cushioning the unfavourable effects the domestic tax cuts are able to ease the negative impacts on the domestic market shares and exports of almost all tradable sectors moreover the unfavourable impacts of domestic tax cuts on both the macro economy and the sectoral profits are obviously smaller than those of the other schemes regardless of the use of the same tax rate or emission reduction amount among the border tax adjustment measures the best performance in general corresponds to the measure purely implementing adjustments on exports

poverty alleviation as an economic problem economists distinguish between technological problems in which variable means confront a given end and economic problems in which given means are allocated across competing ends james buchanan and f a hayek each offer constructive criticisms of the standard definition of an economic problem arguing that economists too easily slide into mechanistic and teleological thinking building on these accounts we argue that there are three key dimensions to the economic problem exchange coordination and governance we then make a case that poverty alleviation is more like an economic problem than a technological one an economic problem with a small e we survey empirical evidence from economics anthropology and sociology indicating that poverty is not a simple lack of objectively identifiable resources but rather a multidimensional and socially embedded phenomenon understanding what poverty alleviation would even look like requires thinking through problems of exchange coordination and governance

effects of carbon taxes in an economy with prior tax distortions an intertemporal general equilibrium analysis abstract this paper analyzes the costs of carbon taxes in a model that recognizes interactions between this tax and pre existing taxes first we examine the extent to which costs of a u s carbon tax are reduced when its revenues finance cuts in income taxes such use of revenues significantly reduces but does not eliminate the overall policy costs the positive overall costs reflect the carbon tax s focus on intermediate inputs and its relatively narrow base in comparison with income taxes we also examine the sensitivity of the carbon tax s costs to the level of pre existing taxes for any given use of revenues welfare costs rise significantly with pre existing tax rates indicating that models disregarding pre existing taxes may substantially understate the costs of new environmental tax initiatives

assessing the extent and nature of chronic poverty in low income countries issues and evidence discussions of chronic poverty have mostly considered its monetary dimensions with current evidence suggesting that such poverty is much more transient than chronic but chronic poverty is a real and important phenomenon potentially more important quantitatively than it first appears once account is taken of different methodological approaches and inevitable measurement difficulties the chronic poor have distinctive characteristics such as lack of assets or high dependency rates which may account for their persistent poverty the paper argues that it is also necessary to develop concepts of chronic poverty further covering relevant nonmonetary dimensions and not just relying on panel data

how much income mobility is there in britain using the first four waves of the british household panel survey 1991 4 and a variety of methods we show that there is much mobility in household net income from one year to the next in britain however most income changes from one year to the next are not very large and when incomes are longitudinally averaged so that transitory variations are smoothed out substantial permanent income differences are revealed there is some evidence of greater mobility for those in the tails of the income distribution relative to the middle and for elderly persons compared to non elderly persons

income mobility in rural india this paper offers a detailed analysis of income mobility in rural india during 1968 1969 to 1970 1971 it focuses on 1 the pattern of upward income mobility among a section of the cultivating poor and 2 some of the key factors that enabled them to overcome poverty the analysis is based on a panel survey of 4118 rural households from the additional rural income survey the author assumes that 16 rupees per person per month at 1960 1961 prices constitutes an upper limit for a minimum daily calorie requirement in rural areas the analysis shows that out of those poor in 1968 over 1 2 ceased to be poor over 12 became poorer and about 36 remained poor without becoming poorer in 1970 out of the not poor in 1968 over 3 4 remained not poor while the remaining became poor in 1970 with the exception of the cultivating not poor who remained not poor all other categories reported substantial income changes in their average incomes during the period in question while the absolutely impoverished earned much lower incomes there were others particularly the poor ceased to be poor who registered impressive income gains comparison of the base year income levels of the 3 subsets of the cultivating poor suggested that on average the poorest of the poor fared better than the moderately poor this conclusion was further supported by an analysis of income mobility within a subset comprising the cultivating poor who ceased to be poor the bulk of these were relatively low income households that earned substantially higher incomes

how much of observed economic mobility is measurement error iv methods to reduce measurement error bias with an application to vietnam research on economic growth and inequality inevitably raise issues concerning economic mobility because the relationship between long run inequality and short run inequality is mediated by income mobility for a given level of short run inequality greater mobility implies lower long run inequality yet empirical measures of both inequality and mobility are biased upward due to measurement error in income and expenditure data collected from household surveys this paper presents a straightforward method to remove this bias using instrumental variable estimates the method is applied to panel data from vietnam the results imply that at least 15 and perhaps as much as 42 of measured mobility is upward bias due to measurement error the results also suggest that measurement error accounts for at least 12 of measured inequality

rural poverty dynamics in kenya structural declines and stochastic escapes we use panel survey data and household event histories to explore patterns of rural poverty dynamics in kenya over the period 2000 2009 we find substantial mobility across poverty categories using economic transition matrices drawing on asset based approaches we distinguish stochastic from structural poverty transitions few households successfully escaped poverty through asset accumulation up to 35 of the upwardly mobile while a large proportion of households up to 66 declining into poverty experienced structural transitions using household event histories we find significant differences across structural poverty transition classes in livelihood strategies household level shocks and other factors

capital constraints and the performance of entrepreneurial firms in vietnam entrepreneurship has been among the key driving forces of the emergence of a dynamic private sector during the recent decades in vietnam this article addresses for vietnam the questions how capital constraints affect the performance of family firms and how entrepreneurs human and social capital interact with capital constraints to leverage entrepreneurial income a panel of 1721 firms in 4 years is used results are consistent with the resource dependency approach indicating an adverse effect of capital constraints on firm performance firms suffering capital constraints perform substantially better suggesting that they need more capital simply to finance newly recognized profit opportunities human capital plays a vital role in relaxing capital constraints and improves the entrepreneurial performance whereas the effect of social capital stemming from strong ties and weak ties is limited strong ties bring emotional support and weak ties give nonfinancial benefits from regular and useful business contacts advanced econometric analysis tools to take into account the endogeneity of capital constraints are used to establish relationships among relevant variables

the associations of soil fertility and market access with household income evidence from rural uganda abstract this study attempts to identify the major factors affecting farm and nonfarm income by using panel data of 894 rural households interviewed in 2003 and 2005 in rural uganda we supplement the panel data with household level soil fertility data and road distance data to the nearest urban center on three road types tarmac loose surface and dirt roads the results suggest that soil fertility measured by the soil organic matter som content is positively associated with crop income but not with livestock and nonfarm income we also find that the total road distance to the nearest urban center and the road quality have strong negative associations with the crop income

income smoothing and consumption smoothing one way that risk averse households protect consumption levels is to borrow and use insurance mechanisms another way common in low income economies is to diversify economic activities and make conservative production and employment choices households thus tend toward limiting exposure only to shocks that can be handled with available credit and insurance typically both types of mechanisms are studied independently but much more can be learned by studying them together first we obtain a more complete picture of risks costs and insurance possibilities second it opens the way to considering biases in standard tests of credit and insurance

income distribution impacts of climate change mitigation policy in the susquehanna river basin economy we examine the cost side income distribution impacts of a carbon tax in the susquehanna river basin srb region of the united states utilizing a computable general equilibrium model we find the aggregate impacts of a 25 ton carbon tax on the srb economy are likely to be negative but modest an approximately one third of 1 reduction in gross regional product grp in the short run and double that amount in the long run however unlike many previous studies we find that the carbon tax is mildly progressive as measured by income bracket changes per capita equivalent variation and gini coefficient changes based on expenditure patterns the dominant factors affecting the distributional impacts are the pattern of output income and consumption impacts that affect lower income groups relatively less than higher income ones an increase in transfer payments favoring lower income groups and decreased corporate profits absorbed primarily by higher income groups

enduring poverty and the conditions of childhood lifecourse and intergenerational poverty transmissions abstract in this paper we explore the conditions of childhood that can lead to poverty throughout the lifecourse and affect transfers of poverty to the next generation the largely inconclusive evidence base surrounding lifecourse and intergenerational poverty transmission is reviewed before a discussion of the key social processes and contexts that impact on childhood lifecourse and intergenerational poverty prioritized issues nutrition childcare and guidance education child work and aspirations and attitudes are explored within the context of unicef s basic framework of survival protection development and participation the paper concludes with an analysis of elements of the wider environment critical to enabling action in childhood to break poverty cycles

consumption insurance an evaluation of risk bearing systems in low income economies the hypothesis of full risk sharing can be taken to data from low income countries and evaluate formal and informal financial systems in many contexts idiosyncratic risks are high so credit insurance arrangements could be beneficial statistical tests reveal that households in southern india take advantage of these possibilities villages in cote d ivoire and countries in thailand do not do as well the paper includes an empirical description of the devices used to smooth consumption and a theoretical discussion of private information and incentives on ideal operating systems the full information and mechanism design frameworks provide benchmarks for policy analysis

numerical simulation on property tax reform evidence from china this article analyses the property tax reform in china in a computable general equilibrium model that recognizes the interaction between and among housing markets in different provinces and macroec

is india s economic growth leaving the poor behind there has been much debate about how much india s poor have shared in the economic growth unleashed by economic reforms in the 1990s the authors argue that india has probably maintained its 1980s rate of poverty reduction in the 1990s however there is considerable diversity in performance across states this holds some important clues for understanding why economic growth has not done more for india s poor india s economic growth in the 1990s has not been occurring in the states where it would have the most impact on poverty nationally if not for the sectoral and geographic imbalance of growth the national rate of growth would have generated a rate of poverty reduction that was double india s historical trend rate states with relatively low levels of initial rural development and human capital development were not well suited to reduce poverty in response to economic growth the study s results are consistent with the view that achieving higher aggregate economic growth is only one element of an effective strategy for poverty reduction in india the sectoral and geographic composition of growth is also important as is the need to redress existing inequalities in human resource development and between rural and urban areas

institutions property taxation and local government finance in china china s rapid urbanisation has prompted its government to explore new sustainable sources of public revenue to finance the continued demand for urban infrastructure and services property tax advocates have sought to take advantage of the real estate booms that have occurred since economic liberalisation by actively campaigning for a real property levy as an appropriate policy choice against this background this study evaluates the prospect of implementing market value based property tax reforms in mainland china based on the new institutional economics perspective it posits property tax as an institutional arrangement which requires complementary mechanisms in land registration property appraisal tax administration social security and dispute resolution property tax reforms would not only necessitate technical changes but would also have extensive social political and legal repercussions for chinese society

income dynamics in argentina during the 1990 s mobiles did change over time in this paper we seek to determine the principal observed socioeconomic factors correlated with household income dynamics in argentina during the nineties in other words we want to identify who got ahead who fell behind and who kept up economic position in argentina in order to determine if they were always the same type of individuals households or if on the contrary their characteristics changed during the distressing 1990 s such analysis is relevant since the rises and falls in income or consumption experienced by households are the most direct indicators available of who benefits how much from economic development although there is a vast literature on income distribution analysis from a cross sectional perspective studies offering insights into the dynamics of income or more generally of economic well being and the factors associated with it are still on the research agenda for many countries such work has been particularly delayed in developing countries chiefly because of a lack of panel data surveys which have only recently begun to be carried out in a more systematic way 4 moreover and again due to data restraints even less is known about the possible changes in the dynamics of income over time if mobility analysis requires at least two observations over time from the same household or

growth inequality and poverty looking beyond averages the evidence is compelling that the poor in developing countries do typically share in the gains from rising aggregate affluence and in the losses from aggregate contraction but how much do poor people share in growth do they gain more in some settings than others do some gain while others lose does pro poor growth mean more or less aggregate growth recent theories and evidence suggest some answers but deeper microeconomic empirical work is needed on growth and distributed change only then will we have a firm basis for identifying the specific policies and programs needed to complement and possibly modify growth oriented policies

smoothing consumption by smoothing income hours of work responses to idiosyncratic agricultural shocks in rural india while research has demonstrated that farm households in developing economies are able to protect consumption from idiosyncratic crop shocks little evidence shows how this is achieved this paper examines the extent to which labor markets allow households to shift labor from farm to off farm employment and the extent to which such a shift explains the observed lack of correlation between consumption and idiosyncratic crop shocks the empirical analysis uses a novel measure of the idiosyncratic crop income shock which utilizes information on start of season cropping choices to more accurately estimate household expectations of weather

the lucky few amidst economic decline distributional change in cote d ivoire as seen through panel data sets 1985 88 this article is an exploratory exercise in using panel data sets to investigate distributional change in cote d ivoire during the second half of the 1980s the panels made it possible to highlight and quantify mobility of the same households across poverty classes over time we found that there were a lucky few who improved their standard of living amid general decline detailed investigations revealed that the lucky few were fairly numerous and the probability of escaping poverty was quite high even for the very poorest these lucky few were widespread regionally although in some socio economic groupings the poor had higher chances of escaping poverty

why people pay taxes the case of the development levy in tanzania abstract this paper examines factors determining tax compliance behavior in local authorities in tanzania the case study is the poll tax locally named development levy the study finds support for the hypothesis that tax compliance is positively related to factors such as ability to pay the perceived probability of being prosecuted and the number of tax evaders known personally by the respondent oppressive tax enforcement harassment of taxpayers and discontent with public service delivery seem to increase tax resistance and may explain widespread tax evasion

livelihood strategies and dynamics in rural cambodia summary this paper addresses one of the major challenges in rural livelihood analysis to quantitatively examine the dynamics of household livelihood strategies it investigates the interactions between livelihood assets activities and outcomes and captures the dynamics of long term changes and their underlying factors the study aims to identify the classification of rural livelihood strategies their transitions and factors influencing these processes and changes we employ the dynamic livelihood strategy framework and use panel data for 2008 and 2012 covering 464 households in 15 villages in cambodia for latent class cluster analysis and regression estimation in this paper livelihood strategies are quantified based on allocation of available resources which overcomes the limitations of income based analysis our study identifies five household livelihood strategies pursued in the study areas and the results show that over 70 of households change livelihood strategies over time in response to evolving pressures incentives and opportunities the study identifies covariates that shape the choices of livelihood strategies and affects the households access to more remunerative strategies such as education ownership of physical assets and access to infrastructure these findings suggest policy implications for improving the range of livelihood choices available to lower income groups to move out of poverty trap

poverty transition and persistence in ethiopia 1994 2004 summary this study analyzes the persistence of poverty in both rural and urban areas in ethiopia during 1994 2004 the key finding is that households move frequently in and out of poverty but the difficulty of exiting from poverty like the chance of avoiding slipping back increases with the time spent in that state and varies considerably between male and female headed households our results imply that it is important to design anti poverty policies both to hinder households from slipping into extreme poverty and to minimize the length of the poverty spell for households once they have fallen into it

risk financial markets and human capital in a developing country this paper explores the link between financial market incompleteness and human capital accumulation we examine how child school attendance responds to seasonal fluctuations in the income of agrarian households using panel data from rural india to pinpoint market imperfections we study responses to aggregate and idiosyncratic as well as to anticipated and unanticipated income shocks our main finding is that seasonal fluctuations in school attendance are a form of self insurance but one which does not result in a substantial loss of human capital on average

one kind of freedom poverty dynamics in post apartheid south africa abstract a 1993 south african living standards survey documented the legacy of apartheid in the form high levels of inequality and human insecurity drawing on a 1998 re survey of households in the 1993 study this paper explores whether this legacy has been superseded or whether apartheid s end has been only one kind of freedom that has left households in a poverty trap from which they cannot escape after proposing a theoretically grounded dynamic poverty typology that distinguishes stochastic from structural poverty transitions the paper goes on to estimate that significant numbers of the south african poor are potentially trapped in a structural poverty trap and lack the means to escape poverty over time

ex ante actions and ex post public responses to drought shocks evidence and simulations from zimbabwe abstract the study examines the consequences of alternative public responses to drought shocks it does so by drawing on household data from resettlement areas of rural zimbabwe from 1992 93 to 1995 96 and the estimation of four behavioral relations the determinants of crop income the determinants of investment in livestock the determinants of investment in agricultural capital stock and the determinants of private transfers this information is used to construct a series of simulations in which drought relief received in the aftermath of the 1994 95 the ex post response is made available to households in the form of agricultural capital stock and extension advice an ex ante action doing so is found to raise household welfare in nondrought years but provides only limited protection in the aftermath of drought

the dynamics of welfare gains and losses an african case study this article uses panel survey data for cote d ivoire to investigate the determinants of welfare gains and losses of households over time a first difference model is estimated which takes account of initial conditions for urban areas it was found that human capital is not only a key explanatory factor for levels of welfare but also the most important endowment to explain welfare changes over time in rural areas physical capital especially land and farm equipment mattered most household size and composition and socioeconomic characteristics of the household also affected welfare changes policy implications are discussed

measurement error bias in estimates of income and income growth among the poor analytical results and a correction formula abstract in any population income growth among the poor may be higher or lower than overall income growth estimates of income growth among the poor are almost always based on household surveys but income and expenditure data in those surveys are almost always measured with error this article uses the assumption that income follows a lognormal distribution to demonstrate that such measurement error can lead to biased estimates of the mean income of the poor and the growth of that mean income over time in particular when both income and the measurement error are lognormally distributed i measurement error leads to underestimation of the mean income among the poor at any point in time ii increases decreases in measurement error over time for a given level of inequality lead to underestimation overestimation of income growth among the poor and iii increases decreases in inequality over time for a given level of measurement error lead to overestimation underestimation of income growt

why growth is not enough household poverty dynamics in northeast gujarat india despite high growth rates in gujarat exceeding 9 per cent per year over the decade of the 1990s poverty in 36 villages located in the northeastern part of this state has changed hardly at all in these villages 9 5 per cent of households escaped from poverty over the past 25 years but 6 3 per cent of households became poor at the same time escape and descent are not symmetric different reasons account for escaping poverty than those for declining into poverty growth alone is hardly sufficient to achieve poverty reduction on any significant scale public policies will be needed to address directly the separate causes for descent into poverty

ten years of q squared implications for understanding and explaining poverty summary over the past decade there have been a number of initiatives to promote a more systematic integration of quantitative and qualitative or q squared approaches to poverty analysis in the global south and a large body of literature had emerged the objective of the article is to present a selective review of this empirical work with a view to demonstrate the value it has added for understanding and explaining poverty the evidence strongly suggests that q squared approaches have aided our understanding of the characteristics of the poor and the causes of poverty

saving in developing countries theory and review in the literature on economic development much of the interest in saving has been focused on the relation between saving and growth but saving is not only about accumulation it is about smoothing consumption in the face of volatile and unpredictable income and helping to ensure the living standards of poor people whose lives are difficult and uncertain this paper develops a model of households which cannot borrow but which accumulate assets as a buffer stock to protect consumption when incomes are low such households dissave as often as they save do not accumulate assets over the long term and have on average very small asset holdings but their consumption is markedly smoother than their income much of the evidence is as consistent with this view of saving as it is incosistent with standard views of smoothing over the life cycle and with explanations of the link between saving and growth in terms of life cycle saving behavior consumption smoothing is also a useful way of thinking about government policy where volatility in the world prices of taxed commodities can generate sharp fluctuations in government revenues as well as reallocations of revenue between the private and public sectors many important policy issues in developing countries hinge on issues of consumption and smoothing and research on these issues is currently likely to be more productive than work on the relation between saving and growth

the persistence of power despite the changing meaning of homeownership an age period cohort analysis of urban housing tenure in china 1989 2011 using nine successive waves of the china health and nutrition survey chns data set this study employs hierarchical age period cohort logistic models hapc to analyse temporal patterns of urban homeownership from 1989 to 2011 with the changing meaning of homeownership due to housing reforms the strong period increases in homeownership track policy changes and the most dramatic increase occurs mainly in the era of housing privatisation rather than housing commodification the temporal analyses also offer insights into housing stratification from redistribution to markets the positive effect of education on homeownership is explained by period increases in homeownership whereas working in state sectors has persistently attached to preferred housing tenure choice before and after the housing reforms moreover the significant cohort effect lends support to strengthened temporal inequalities in the reform era these findings not only provide a dynamic understanding of housing stratification in post so

on the measurement of poverty official statistics in the united states and the united kingdom show a rise in poverty between the 1970 s and the 1980 s but scepticism has been expressed with regard to these findings in particular the methods employed in the measurement of poverty have been the subject of criticism this paper re examines three basic issues in measuring poverty the choice of the poverty line the index of poverty and the relation between poverty and inequality one general theme running through the paper is that there is a diversity of judgments which enter the measurement of poverty and that it is necessary to recognize these explicitly in the procedures adopted there is likely to be disagreement about the choice of poverty line affecting both its level and its structure in this situation we may only be able to make comparisons and not to measure differences and the comparisons may lead only to a partial rather than a complete ordering the first section of the paper discusses the stochastic dominance conditions which allow such comparisons illustrating their application by reference to data for the united states the choice of poverty measure has been the subject of an extensive literature and a variety of measures have been proposed in the second section of the paper a different approach is suggested considering a class of measures satisfying certain general properties and seeking conditions under which all members of the class which includes many of those proposed give the same ranking those sceptical about measures of poverty often assert that poverty and inequality are being confounded the third section of the paper distinguishes four different viewpoints and relates them to theories of justice and views of social welfare

carbon taxes and india using the indian module of the second generation model sgm we explore a reference case and three scenarios in which greenhouse gas emissions were controlled two alternative policy instruments carbon taxes and tradable permits were analyzed to determine comparative costs of stabilizing emissions at 1 1990 levels the 1x case 2 two times the 1990 levels the 2x case and 3 three times the 1990 levels the 3x case the analysis takes into account india s rapidly growing population and the abundance of coal and biomass relative to other fuels we also explore the impacts of a global tradable permits market to stabilize global carbon emissions on the indian economy under the following two emissions allowance allocation methods 1 1 grandfathered emissions emissions allowances are allocated based on 1990 emissions 2 2 equal per capita emissions emissions allowances are allocated based on share of global population tradable permits represent a lower cost method to stabilize indian emissions than carbon taxes i e global action would benefit india more than independent actions

building talented worker housing in shenzhen china to sustain place competitiveness in china economic reforms over the last three decades have transformed its urban governments so that economic growth takes priority over other policy goals the purpose of this paper is to explore how talented worker housing policies have emerged within one of china s first class cities namely shenzhen to address its affordability problems but also to enhance local economic competitiveness whilst shenzhen is heading in the direction of an international entrepreneurial city focusing in particular on high value added industry it needs to attract and retain professional skilled workers to sustain this growth trajectory drawing on the concept of urban entrepreneurialism the paper examines how talented worker housing policies and procedures have been initiated and implemented in shenzhen in relation to its economic development strategy and affordable housing programme the paper suggests that not only is policy delivery proving problematic but affordability problems remain insurmountable thus potentially limiting the effectiveness of this particular urban entrepreneurial strategy in supporting place competitiveness

a regional dynamic general equilibrium model of alternative climate change strategies outcomes and noncooperative equilibria this study finds that cooperative policies show much higher levels of emissions reductions than do noncooperative strategies that there are substantial differences in the levels of controls in both the cooperative and the noncooperative policies among different countries and that high income countries may be the major losers from cooperation jel h41 q4 q2 q20

energy taxation as a policy instrument to reduce co2 emissions a net benefit analysis abstract this study evaluates the costs and benefits of energy taxation as a policy instrument to conserve energy and reduce co2 emissions the study combines economic cost estimates generated with a cge model and monetary estimates of environmental damages in a comprehensive cost benefit framework we find that optimal co2 emissions reductions range from 5 to 38 depending on different assumptions about energy substitution elasticities and environmental damages co2 emissions reductions of between 8 and 64 can be attained at no additional welfare cost relative to a policy of not undertaking any action to control co2 emissions

household strategies and rural livelihood diversification this article reviews the recent literature on diversification as a livelihood strategy of rural households in developing countries with particular reference to sub saharan africa livelihood diversification is defined as the process by which rural families construct a diverse portfolio of activities and social support capabilities in order to survive and to improve their standards of living the determinants and effects of diversification in the areas of poverty income distribution farm output and gender are examined some policy inferences are summarised the conclusion is reached that removal of constraints to and expansion of opportunities for diversification are desirable policy objectives because they give individuals and households more capabilities to improve livelihood security and to raise living standards

has the development gap between the ethnic minority and majority groups narrowed in vietnam evidence from household surveys using household data for rural northern vietnam between 1993 and 2014 we find that the ethnic minority group continued to lag behind the majority group in various development indicators despite the overall improvement in living standards our regression and decomposition analyses show that the structural differences between the two groups are an important cause of persistent development gap however the nature of structural differences changed over time and no single source of structural difference explains the persistent gap we argue that more minority appropriate policies are needed to lift poor minority households out of poverty further and reduce the development gap

measurement error and earnings dynamics some estimates from the psid validation study previous empirical work on measurement error in survey earnings data has shown that the variance of the measurement error is roughly constant over time it is negatively correlated with true earnings and it is autocorrelated with previous measurement errors this article proposes a simple model in which the measurement error stems from underreporting of transitory earnings fluctuations and a white noise component the model fits well to data from the panel study of income dynamics validation study the results imply that autocorrelations in the changes of earnings can be estimated relatively accurately despite the presence of measurement error

carbon taxes with exemptions in an open economy a general equilibrium analysis of the german tax initiative abstract sectoral exemptions from environmental regulation are applied in many countries to avoid adverse adjustment effects in specific industries the problem with exemptions is that they can make environmental policy more costly our paper analyzes the welfare costs of exemptions in environmental policy together with the issue of unilateral carbon taxes in an open economy several countries within the eu have introduced or contemplated unilateral taxes to reduce anthropogenic co2emissions taxes which are unilaterally imposed in an open economy can have significant impacts on production and employment of energy and export intensive industries to save jobs by maintaining international competitiveness most co2taxation schemes include exemptions for energy and export intensive industries as a compromise between environmental objectives and employment in these sectors this paper shows that such compromises are costly as the tax base narrows the dead weight loss increases our calculations illustrate this point in the framework of a static general equilibrium model for west germany calibrated to 1990 data we evaluate the excess costs of exemptions as a means of saving jobs in specific industries relative to an alternative instrument a uniform carbon tax cum wage subsidy which achieves an identical level of national emissions and employment at a fraction of the cost