Vietnam's high economic growth in the 1990s led to sharp reductions in poverty, yet over the same time period inequality increased. This increased inequality may be less worrisome if Vietnamese households experience a high degree of income mobility over time. This is because high mobility...

Empirical studies on health at a disaggregate level-by socioeconomic group or geographic location-can provide useful information for designing poverty-focused interventions. Using Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data, the author investigates the determinants of health outcomes in low-income...

The authors construct and derive the properties of estimators of welfare that take advantage of the detailed information about living standards available in small household surveys and the comprehensive coverage of a census or large sample. By combining the strengths of each, the estimators can...

The author empirically explores the relationship between household poverty and the incidence and treatment of fever--as an indicator of malaria--among children in Sub-Saharan Africa. He uses household Demographic and Health Survey data collected in the 1990s from 22 countriesin which malaria is...

Money demand in Venezuela is modeled using structural time series and error correction approaches, for the period 1993.1 to 2001.4. The preferred model features seasonal cointegration and was estimated following a structural time series approach. There are similarities in the long-run behavior...

The authors analyze sectoral growth in Ecuador, using multivariate co-integration analysis. They find significant long-run relationships between the agricultural, industrial, and service sectors. Moreover, they are able to derive dynamic sector models that combine the short-run links between the...

Comparing changes in inequality with initial levels, using new data, the author finds that within-country inequality in income or per capita consumption is converging toward medium levels--a Gini index around 40 percent. The finding is robust to allow for serially independent measurement error...

In a data set for developing, and transition economies, the author finds that private consumption per capita, based on national accounts, deviates on average from mean household income,or expenditure based on national sample surveys. Growth rates also differ systematically, so that the ratio of...

Labor costs in Francophone Africa are considered high by the standards of low-income countries, at least in the formal sector. Are they a brake on industrialization, or the result of successful enterprise development? Are they imposed on firms by powerful unions, or government regulations, or a...