Prevailing measures of relative poverty put an implausibly high weight on relative deprivation, such that measured poverty does not fall when all incomes grow at the same rate. This stems from the (implicit) assumption in past measures that very poor people incur a negligible cost of social...

Tajikistan was one of the fastest growing countries in the Europe and Central Asia region during the last decade. The economic growth was widely shared by the population and as a result poverty (measured by the national poverty line) declined from 73 percent in 2003 to 47 percent in 2009...

According to global spatial data sets in 2000 more than one-third of the rural population in developing countries was located on less favored agricultural land and areas. Less favored agricultural lands are susceptible to low productivity and degradation, because their agricultural potential is...

Development aid and policy discussions often assume that poorer countries have less internal capacity for redistribution in favor of their poorest citizens. The assumption is tested using data for 90 developing countries. The capacity for redistribution is measured by the marginal tax rate on...

The authors report new estimates of measures of absolute poverty for the developing world over 1981-2004. A clear trend decline in the percentage of people who are absolutely poor is evident, although with uneven progress across regions. They find more mixed success in reducing the total number...

This paper provides a new definition of'time poverty'as working long hours and having no choice to do otherwise. An individual is time poor if he/she is working long hours and is also monetary poor, or would fall into monetary poverty if he/she were to reduce his/her working hours below a given...

This paper analyzes poverty in Haiti based on the first Living Conditions Survey of 7,186 households covering the whole country and representative at the regional level. Using a USD1 a day extreme poverty line, the analysis reveals that 49 percent of Haitian households live in absolute poverty....

Trade policies can promote aggregate efficiency, but the ensuing structural adjustments generally create both winners and losers. From an incomes perspective, trade liberalization can raise gross domestic product per capita, but rates of emergence from poverty depend on individual household...

Concerns have been raised about the impact of rising food prices worldwide on the poor. To assess the (short term) impact of rising food prices in any particular country it is necessary to look at both the impact on food producers (who benefit from an increase in prices) and food consumers (who...

Concerns have been raised about the impact of rising food prices worldwide on the poor. To assess the (short term) impact of rising food prices in any particular country it is necessary to look at both the impact on food producers (who benefit from an increase in prices) and food consumers (who...