Indebtedness has been acknowledged as one of the most infamous stumbling blocks in the way of rural prosperity. It is cancerous, self-perpetuating, malignant and maleficent. It abates agricultural production, abashes social psyche, aggravates inequalities in the distribution of socioeconomic...

This paper provides an extensive review of growth, inequality and poverty reduction in the East Asian miracle economies. This review suggests that the basic impetus for poverty reduction was robust economic growth, which was fostered by a conducive policy and institutional framework. This...

Choosing an appropriate equivalence scale is a prerequisite for comparisons of economic wellbeing income distribution, inequality or poverty. This is true for country specific work or for cross-national comparisons. Researchers generally either use a country specific equivalence scale (social...

The emergence of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), in particular the Internet, has generated new enthusiasms about the development prospects for poor economies. Many now think that new technologies can provide a faster route to better livelihoods and improved quality of life...

The publication surveys the major existing evidence from EUROSTAT and UN/World Bank sources and comes to the depressing conclusion that there is practically no real convergence of social conditions in Europe over the last years. Instead, the gaps between East and West, and between South and...

This paper explains how to build Lorenz Curves for income distributions and discusses their use for inequality measurement. A short conceptual background, a step-by-step procedure and a simple numerical example illustrate how to calculate and draw Lorenz Curves. A discussion on the use of Lorenz...

This paper illustrates how Crossing Generalised Lorenz (GL) curves can be used to identify the best income distribution on social welfare grounds within a set of alternative income distributions generated by different policy options. It starts by illustrating two alternative income distributions...

The paper is concerned with poverty in Romania during a period of economic growth (2000-2008). The poverty incidence and profile before financial and economic crisis and the evolution of poverty in the context of economic growth and of a strong increase of households income have been studied,...

This paper discusses why Nicaragua is today one of the poorest countries in the region of Latin America and the Caribbean. Lack of sustained economic growth is viewed as the main cause of poverty in the country. The effects of political conflicts on the breaks of the long term growth path are...

The European Union coordinates and encourages Member State actions to combat poverty, and to reform their social protection systems on the basis of policy exchanges and mutual learning (‘best practices’). Some EU countries are more effective in poverty reduction than others. What can explain...