"The authors examine the empirical evidence in support of the poverty trap view of underdevelopment. They calibrate simple aggregate growth models in which poverty traps can arise due to either low saving or low technology at low levels of development. They then use these models to assess the...

"Recent literature and new data help determine plausible bounds to some key demographic differences between the poor and non-poor in the developing world. The author estimates that selective mortality-whereby poorer people tend to have higher death rates-accounts for 10-30 percent of the...

"The authors use data from a large nationally representative survey in Russia to analyze the distributional and welfare implications of draft avoidance as a common response to Russia's highly unpopular conscription system. They develop a simple theoretical model that describes household...

"The authors apply the dynamic macroeconomic framework developed by Agnor, Bayraktar, and El Aynaoui (2004) to Niger. As in the original model, linkages between foreign aid, public investment (disaggregated into education, infrastructure, and health), and growth are explicitly captured. Although...

"Paci, Sasin, and Verbeek attempt to analyze the linkages between macroeconomic policies and economic growth variables, their movement over time, and their impact on poverty in the case of Poland. Poland, a middle-income country, is of particular interest because its data sources allow for a...

"There has been much debate about how much poor people in developing countries gain from trade openness, as one aspect of 'globalization.' Ravallion views the issue through both 'macro' and 'micro' empirical lenses. The macro lens uses cross-country comparisons and aggregate time series data....

"An important area of research in recent years involves assessing the microeconomic implications of macro-level policies--particularly those related to international trade. While a wide range of research methodologies are available for assessing the microeconomic incidence of micro-policies, as...

"Although Tanzania experienced relatively rapid growth in per capita GDP in the 1995-2001 period, household budget survey (HBS) data show only a modest and statistically insignificant decline in poverty between 1992 and 2001. To assess the likely trajectory of poverty rates over the course of...

"In this paper the authors investigate individuals' exposure to indoor air pollution. Using new survey data from Bangladesh, they analyze exposure at two levels--differences within households attributable to family roles, and differences across households attributable to income and education....

"Using recently completed "poverty maps" for Cambodia, Ecuador, and Madagascar, the authors simulate the impact on poverty of transferring an exogenously given budget to geographically defined subgroups of the population according to their relative poverty status. They find large gains from...