A new generation of policies can trace the path from wealth to inclusion. Building on its urban and youthful population, Equatorial Guinea can shift from a model of extraction to one of prosperity. This report—the World Bank's first Poverty and Equity Assessment for Equatorial...

Mini-grids are emerging as a key solution to electrify access-deficit communities, yet their effectiveness in improving energy access and household welfare remains underexplored. This paper provides novel evidence from Tanzania, where a policy reform doubled the number of mini-grids since 2008....

Time poverty is a key yet conceptually contested dimension of household living standards. Both univariate and bivariate measures remain debated because there is no clear consensus on how to define and quantify socially necessary unpaid work, the time that money cannot substitute for, across...

This study examines the career aspirations of economically disadvantaged Filipino children participating in the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), the Philippines' flagship conditional cash transfer program. Using data from 9,958 children aged 10 to 25 collected through the Fourth Wave...

Understanding poverty and well-being requires moving beyond income-based measures to account for how work and time are organized within households. While income and unpaid work sustain household living standards, in combination with leisure they determine how these standards are produced and...

We show that executives' early-life poverty experiences reduce both internal (executive-employee) and external (executive-peer) corporate pay disparities. Three mechanisms drive this effect: increased risk aversion in poverty-exposed executives, strategic avoidance of negative media coverage to...

In this paper, we present the empirical methodology used to estimate the Levy Institute Measure of Time and Income Poverty (LIMTIP) for the United States over the period 2007-2022. We provide a step-by-step account of the statistical matching procedure employed to construct a synthetic dataset...

Colombia has a complex legal framework meant to protect the population against basic risks through a combination of contributory and non-contributory social insurance. The population is almost perfectly split between them, with eligibility to participate in the latter determined by poverty....

In fragile states such as the Central African Republic, where conflict and institutional fragility severely constrain traditional data collection, mapping multidimensional vulnerability and potential deprivation poses a significant challenge for designing targeted interventions. This paper...

South Africa has a relatively well-developed social protection system for a middle-income country. Despite its roots in the country's racially discriminatory past, the system has been repurposed post-apartheid to address deep poverty and severe inequality. This paper explores key characteristics...

Chile combines high income levels and strong human development outcomes with persistent inequality. This paper examines the country's social protection matrix, focusing on its institutional configuration, financial structure, and main outcomes. The analysis distinguishes three core components-...

How do systemic modes of discrimination-such as a caste system, or racial bias-impact the transmission of intergenerational opportunities in a developing country? What are the mechanisms by which discriminatory norms in labour and marriage markets affect such opportunities? How could we measure...

The risk of a worker falling into unemployment represents one of the most important threats to the stability of households' finances - both in terms of lower spending (and hence living standards) and in terms of a greater degree of financial distress (such as the accumulation of unmanageable...

This working paper investigates the tension between market forces and welfare policies by applying Karl Polanyi's "double movement" study to pre- and posttransformation Poland. The analysis aims at providing a comprehensive perspective on how poverty relief policies impacted and have been...

The haor (Ox-bow Lake) region in Bangladesh, comprising seven districts, is rich in fishing, biodiversity, and boro-rice cultivation. However, its people are poorer due to wet monsoon seasonality. This study evaluates the joint impact of microcredit facilities and social safety net programs...

Which poverty context matters for long-term outcomes-family or community, economic or social? We construct a measure of poverty along these dimensions and analyze individual-level longitudinal data spanning 21 years in Indonesia to examine the long-term outcomes associated with different types...

Since the late 1980s, extreme poverty has declined sharply, life expectancy and schooling have increased, and electoral democracy has expanded. However poverty reduction has slowed in recent years, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic, amid intensifying conflict, fragility, climate...

The Philippines aspires to become a predominantly middle-class society by 2040. Significant strides have been achieved in the reduction of extreme poverty. However, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of recent gains and the vulnerability of many households to economic shocks. This study...

This paper investigates child poverty in Germany through a multidimensional lens, combining Sen’s Capability Approach and Bourdieu’s Capital Theory to develop a adapted Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) for children above 11 and youth aged 17. Drawing on data from the German...

Road infrastructure boosts economic opportunities and thus contributes to poverty alleviation. This paper investigates the causal impact of paved primary roads on poverty and income mobility in Ecuador, with particular attention to the mechanisms through which these effects materialize....

Land-use policies shape the spatial allocation of infrastructure, services, and development and thus have direct implications for welfare. This paper examines the effects of Colombia's municipal territorial plan updates on poverty through the lens of the housing and services channel. Using...

A bi-directional relationship between poverty and mental health may create a vicious cycle, wherein economic hardship and psychological distress reinforce each other. We examine the short-term dynamics between income fluctuations and mental well-being using 17 months of weekly financial diaries...

This report examines child deprivation in Ireland. It focuses on children who experience deprivation but are not classified as at-risk-of-poverty (AROP). As a result, they fall outside the official consistent poverty measure, which is a combined measure of AROP and deprivation. The report uses...

The discussion around globalization often overlooks historical context and real-world dynamics, especially in the context of global development. This study examines the relationship between information and communication technology (ICT), geopolitical risks (GPR), and globalization in Pakistan...

Climate shocks increase poverty and reduce development gains and productive investments, in part because vulnerable households have poor financial resilience, are often not covered by public safety nets, and therefore have little ability to cushion the impacts of shocks. Globally, nearly one in...

This paper presents the first estimates of extreme child poverty and child poverty using the World Bank's recently revised international poverty lines. Using the international poverty line of $3.00 per day and the higher $8.30 per day poverty line (both expressed in 2021 purchasing power...

This policy note examines the role of social safety nets in addressing persistent poverty and inequality in Cameroon. Building on over a decade of implementation, Cameroon's main safety nets initiative-the Projet Filets Sociaux (PFS)-has laid important foundations but remains limited in scale...

Floods are becoming more frequent and severe due to climate change, population growth, and land cover changes. In Paraguay, floods are the most common weather-related hazard and disproportionately impact poor and vulnerable populations. This study contributes to understanding household-level...

Energy poverty describes a condition of energy-related social deprivation, usually associated with inadequate access to energy services, unfulfilled basic energy needs, or excessive payment for energy. Despite substantial progress in the research, a significant theoretical divergence still...

As financial globalization continues to evolve, it has played a pivotal role in the development of financial sectors in developing countries, enhancing efficiency and fostering competition. However, this trend has also raised concerns regarding its socio-economic impacts, particularly in...