In-work poverty became a prominent policy issue in the United States long before the term itself acquired any meaning and relevance in other industrialized countries. With America's embrace of an employment-centered antipoverty strategy, the working poor have become even more of an issue. This...

Since 2000, Zimbabwe has been under some pressure to provide more fully for its children. It is not clear whether child poverty has worsened, although AIDS, drought, and economic mismanagement have all compromised poverty reduction. In any case, child poverty has come under increased scrutiny,...

We analyse the effects of environmental taxes on welfare and carbon emissions at the household level for the case of Mexico. The integrated welfare‐environmental analysis, which is based on a censored energy consumer demand system, extends previous work in two ways. First, the estimation of a...

This paper examines the role of education as causal channel through which growing up poor affects the economic outcomes in adulthood in the European Union. We apply a potential outcomes approach to quantify those impacts and we provide a sensitivity analysis on possible unobserved confounders,...

We assess the correlations between mobile banking and inclusive development (poverty and inequality) in 93 developing countries for the year 2011. Mobile banking entails: 'mobile phones used to pay bills' and 'mobile phones used to receive/send money', while the modifying policy indicator is the...

Purpose- We respond to some challenges in the transition to Sustainable Development Goals by examining the correlations between mobile and inclusive development (quality of growth, poverty and inequality) in 93 developing countries for the year 2011. Design/methodology/approach- Mobile money...

The challenges of sustainable development are primarily ethical in nature. Guided by a ceaseless quest for profit, today's global economy is synonymous with vast amounts of exclusion, indignity, and environmental devastation. To succeed, therefore, the Sustainable Development Goals require...

We estimate the effect of welfare reform on the intergenerational transmission of welfare participation and related economic outcomes using a long panel of mother-daughter pairs over the survey period 1968–2013 in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Because states implemented welfare reform at...

This paper introduces a series of augmentations to the Current Population Survey to allow for more accurate estimations of American poverty outcomes and a more fruitful integration of the U.S. into comparative research. The augmentations address three shortcomings in recent poverty research,...

This paper documents the variation in living standards of the poorest fifth of children in rich (and some middle-income) nations, with a focus on the relative importance and interaction of social transfers (net of taxes) and labour market incomes. Overall, the cross-national variation in the...

The seventh goal of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is dedicated to ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030. While energy was implicit in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the SDGs explicitly recognise the direct linkage between...

With a surface area of 1,267,000 square kilometres, Niger is a vast Sahelian country located in the south of the Sahara Desert, which covers over two thirds of its land. In 2015, it had an estimated population of 17 million inhabitants and a particularly high growth rate of 3.3 per cent. It is...

This book investigates what international placements of healthcare employees in low resource settings add to the UK workforce and the efficacy of its national health system. The authors present empirical data collected from a volunteer deployment project in Uganda focused on reducing maternal...

In this paper we assess the impact of a Minimum Income Scheme (MIS) which has been operating in the Basque Country, one of Spain's 17 regions, for more than twenty years. In particular, we test whether the policy delays entry into employment for recipients. In addition, we test the efficacy of...

Detailed analyses of poverty and wellbeing in developing countries, based on household surveys, have been ongoing for more than three decades. The large majority of developing countries now regularly conduct a variety of household surveys, and their information base with respect to poverty and...

We study the welfare, energy poverty, and CO2 emission implications of energy price change scenarios in Indonesia. Our analysis extends previous analyses of energy price impacts at the household level in several ways. First, by employing a household energy demand system (QUAIDS), we are able to...

Forward-looking poverty analyses are essential for targeting and implementing poverty prevention interventions. In the presence of uncertainty and risk, the current poverty status of households is not a good indicator of whether they will be poor in the future. This paper examines consumption...

Poverty-growth elasticities are frequently calculated to provide insight into the inclusiveness of the growth process. Mathematically, the formula employed to calculate the growth elasticity of poverty leads to lower values for higher initial poverty rates, ceteris paribus. This paper discusses...

This paper presents baseline results from the latest version of EUROMOD (version G4.0+), the tax-benefit microsimulation model for the EU. First, we briefly report the process of updating EUROMOD. We then present indicators for income inequality and risk of poverty using EUROMOD and discuss the...

The earliest age at which women can receive a state pension in the UK (the "state pension age") has been increasing since 2010. We use a difference-in-differences methodology, exploiting the gradual increase from age 60 in 2010 to age 63 in 2016, to estimate the impact of the reform on women's...

This paper analyses some macroeconomic implications of the statutory minimum wage in the member states of the European Union and assesses how its institutional design influences these outcomes. First, the paper looks at the institutional dimensions of statutory minimum wage setting. On the basis...

We analyze the relationship between Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) and external donors, with the aim of contributing to the debate on "mission drift" in microfinance. We assume that both the donor and the MFI are pro-poor, possibly at different extents. Borrowers can be (very) poor or...

We report a small-sample, preliminary evaluation of the economic impact of temporary overseas work by Haitian agricultural workers. This work occurs in the United States in the context of a pilot program designed as a form of post-disaster development assistance to Haiti. We find that the...

Using the March Current Population Survey data from 1984 to 2013, I provide a comprehensive evaluation of how minimum wage policies influence the distribution of family incomes. I find robust evidence that higher minimum wages shift down the cumulative distribution of family incomes at the...

We analyze the potential influence of a number of factors on the distribution of equivalized net incomes in Germany over the period 2005/2006 to 2010/11. While income inequality considerably increased in the years before 2005/2006, this trendwas stopped after 2005/2006. Among many other factors,...

Relying on the present literature, official statistics, and household survey data in the People's Republic of China, this paper summarizes research findings on the relationship between urbanization, urban-rural inequality, and poverty, and provides further empirical evidence on the role of...

A key question in the design of anti-poverty programs is to what extent they should be targeted. Empirical evaluations of targeted transfer schemes and simulation exercises often point to further gains that can be had from targeted transfers vis-à-vis universal transfers or from more narrow...

In a model in which agents differ in wages and preferences over labor time-consumption bundles, we study labor income tax schemes that alleviate poverty. To avoid conflict with individual well-being, we require redistribution to take place between agents on both sides of the poverty line...

This paper considers the possibility of mission drift in microfinance; a situation where Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) move away from targeting the poor and towards better-off clients. Using two different measures of poverty, the paper examines whether microfinance institutions in Uganda follow...

We use data from two rounds of the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) to study the determinants of subjective well-being in China over the period 2005-2010 during which self-reported happiness scores show an increase across all income groups. Ordered probit regression analysis of well-being...

It is commonly believed that mandating higher legal minimum wages (LMWs) is needed to help the poor earn a level of income that would allow them healthy and dignified lives. It is also seen as a tool to protect the weak against exploitation. This popular belief motivates and justifies the...

The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program has been much maligned and dismissed as a "dole-out" program. Critics have focused on the fact that it provides cash grants directly to poor families, believing it would promote the culture of mendicancy and dependence. Others believe that the grants would...

This paper presents baseline results from the latest version of EUROMOD (version G3.0+), the tax-benefit microsimulation model for the EU-28. First, we briefly report the process of updating EUROMOD. We then present indicators for income inequality and risk of poverty using EUROMOD and discuss...

There is a wide agreement among poverty research community that conventional estimates of poverty (i.e., money-metric measures) do not take into account out of pocket payments of health care. Significant household health spending would overestimate total household expenditure, which results in...

In the great majority of Latin American countries in the 2000s, economic growth took place and brought about improvements in almost all labour market indicators and consequent reductions in poverty rates. Across countries, economic growth was not all that mattered; external factors were...

This paper discusses the emergence of two new middles since the Cold War, namely middle-income countries and people living above absolute poverty but below a security-from poverty-line. The paper sets out what has happened. It is argued that although there has been substantial economic growth,...

This paper looks into whether and how sub-national regions can benefit from a country’s economic openness. Using data on the Philippines, it first notes marked disparities across its regions as reflected in economic and social indicators. The dominance of Metropolitan Manila in the national...

Despite some improvements in recent years, poverty and food insecurity remain widespread and the main challenges in Ethiopia. Using individual and household level data collected in rural Ethiopia, we examine if aspirations are strongly associated with well-being outcomes, as posited in the...

This study uses a comprehensive framework to quantify the welfare changes of rural and non-rural households in Mexico associated with the food price crisis of 2007. The total change in welfare is decomposed into five contributors. I find that income effects, i.e. changes through profits and...

We analyze the potential influence of a number of factors on the distribution of equivalized net incomes in Germany over the period 2005/2006 to 2010/11. While income inequality considerably increased in the years before 2005/2006, this trend was stopped after 2005/2006. Among many other...

Scientists estimate that anthropogenic climate change leads to increased surface temperature, sea-level rise, more frequent and significant extreme weather and climate events, among others. In this study, we investigate how climate change can potentially change the vulnerability to poverty using...

This paper investigates if trade can help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of poverty eradication using microeconomic and macroeconomic mechanisms and the effects of trade and trade policy on consumer prices, producer prices, and wages. As these mechanisms affect the real...

Indigent membership in PhilHealth has surged in recent years, driven by the nation-wide identification of the poor. However, the massive identification has led to the enrollment of more members than official poverty estimates, resulting in leakages in the government's social health insurance...

Non-formal schools play an increasingly important role in the delivery of educational services in poor communities, but little systematic evidence is available about their placement choices. We study location choice of "one teacher, one classroom" non-formal primary schools pioneered by BRAC...

Using comparable fiscal incidence analysis, this paper examines the impact of fiscal policy on inequality and poverty in 25 countries for around 2010. Success in fiscal redistribution is driven primarily by redistributive effort (share of social spending to GDP in each country) and the extent to...

Over the past two decades immigration enforcement has grown exponentially in the United States. We exploit the geographical and temporal variation in a novel index of the intensity of immigration enforcement between 2005 and 2011 to show how the average yearly increase in interior immigration...