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This article illustrates a microsimulation exercise on the Local Development Plan 2016–2019: Medellín Cuenta con Vos using a cost-efficiency approach [A Cost-Efficiency Analysis (CEA) when focused on the study of public policy establishes how the investment in one or several interventions impacts the well-being of the population in a quantifiable value. I will conceive this analysis as the monetary resources that are required to impact a well-being indicator in a specific percentage, what allows me to make a policy comparison]. Public projects in education, health, social inclusion, security, housing, urban integral projects (UIP), environmental development and mobility are simulated, using as an objective function the Cost-Efficiency Index of the Development Plan (CEIDP). I found that by executing the whole investment plan, the index increases by 3.07% points for the 4-year period. The most cost-efficient public interventions are those attached to the UIP. I estimate that the investment of COP 1.0 billion in the UIP projects might trigger by 0.01% the CEIDP, followed by training for work projects (COP 2.5 billion) and childhood projects (COP 2.6 billion). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is undergoing a campaign which is called "The Targeted Poverty Alleviation Policy" to eradicate extreme poverty from rural China until 2020. Though poverty in rural China has been studied intensively in different objective dimensions, little attention has been paid to poverty line settings and subjective poverty, which are hinged to the policy effects. In order to fill in the research gap, this study employs a nationally representative survey of rural households in 2016, to measure subjective poverty in rural China, and analyze the determinants as well. Our results indicate that the mean subjective poverty line of the rural households is 8297 yuan per capita, which is far higher than the national poverty line (2800 yuan). Statistically, 29% of the surveyed rural households who are not objectively poor feel subjectively poor. The objective poverty line cannot fully reflect the subjective poverty perception. Thus, how to reduce the subjective poverty perception could be a major policy agenda in rural China after 2020, when extreme poverty is no longer a problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates seven dimensions of poverty in Vietnam (income, health, education, housing, assets, basic services and economic status) using the Household Living Standard Survey data of 2014. The Government of Vietnam disburses funds for poverty alleviation to regions on the basis of incidence of household income poverty. Our study shows that this method neither fully captures the complex regional diversity of poverty nor does it accurately identify regions with a higher severity of poverty. For the first time in poverty studies of Vietnam, we explore the role of multiple spatial levels on poverty in multiple dimensions. Unlike the practice in the existing literature which classifies the poor with an arbitrary poverty cut-off, we use a fuzzy method that allows the inclusion of people who are in partial poverty. Furthermore, by utilizing random intercept multilevel models to decompose the variation of poverty at the household, commune, district and province levels, poverty maps for Vietnam are developed to visualize the spatial evidence of the severity and incidence of poverty. We identify that the provinces that are relatively less (more) poor in the income dimension are more (less) destitute in several other dimensions, which clearly shows a need for special policy attention. Our method reveals that the poverty ranking of provinces in regional Vietnam departs widely from those obtained through traditional single-level analysis. This suggests that poverty in Vietnam can be explained not only by characteristics at the household level, but also by contextual factors at higher levels (commune/village, district, province). These empirical findings can help Vietnamese policy makers determine suitable strategies to effectively target the most deprived regions and to develop more appropriate poverty-alleviation programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assess the level and distribution of compensation for households with children provided by child support policies in Croatia, Slovenia and Austria. The child support policies in which we are interested include child and large family benefits, subsistence and housing benefits, and tax relief for dependent children. Using a microsimulation technique of "policy importing", we show that the adequacy and evenness of the Croatian child support could be substantially improved if Croatia's current policies were replaced by their Slovenian and Austrian equivalents. We propose improved versions of Verbist and Van Lancker's (Soc Indic Res 128(3):1299–1318, 2016) indicator of horizontal equity in the sense of construction, aggregation to the population level and interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various local stakeholders with diverse needs seek different treatment and actions by their local governments. From the modern perspective of local governance, this article examines whether local governments are sufficiently responsive in meeting not only the mandatory responsibilities, but also the rapidly expanding range of societal expectations. This study enriches the existing local governance literature with a novel methodology and a set of indicators for measuring the quality of networked community local governance. The primary goal is to enlighten the local governance theory with a newly designed perspective and to offer our own innovative quantitative representation. The conclusions are based on theoretical refinements and our own innovative methodology supported by an empirical investigation. Finally, a composite indicator of social responsiveness of local governments is constructed, elaborated and illustrated through a case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Living in poverty may have long-run negative effects. The interaction between families and public policies is crucial as it affects a child's opportunities. The aim of this paper is to check whether public policies implemented during individuals' childhood have a long-run effect in the probability of being poor in adulthood, net of personal and family characteristics. We consider two specific childhood-related public spending programs capturing different mechanism through which public policies might affect poverty: in primary education and in family allowances. We find that an increase in public spending in education accounts for a sizeable reduction in the incidence of poverty in adulthood. On the contrary, expenditure on family allowances does not have any impact on adult poverty status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to investigate the Asian Development Bank's (ADB) finding of increasing trend in income poverty in China since 2000, this paper studies income and multidimensional poverty in China between 2000 and 2011 using China Health and Nutrition Survey data. It is observed the ADB proposed approach, adjusted for vulnerability, demonstrates an upward trend in income poverty. Income poverty is decreasing, however, for the World Bank's poverty cut-offs ($1.25 or $1.90). To measure multidimensional poverty, along with income (with ADB's adjusted Asian poverty line and World Bank's poverty lines), other indicators such as health, education and living standards are considered in this paper. The evident disparities and diversities in rural and urban multidimensional poverty are further examined. Per capita net income, highest level of education and flush toilet are found to be major contributors to both rural and urban poverty. The rural–urban disparity in terms of mild and moderate poverty appears to have decreased in the period before 2009, however, there have been increases since then, and the gap in terms of severe poverty remained quite high in this decade. We find that food insecurity does not play a major role in the rural–urban disparity in poverty. In the recent period, health insurance has become more prominent in explaining urban destitution, while the rural population is found to be more vulnerable to income fluctuations. Our results also show long-term poverty to be highly influenced by health. Our findings raise questions about the adequacies in the provision of health insurance and the quality of education, particularly in rural China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 disposable income of disadvantaged children is comprised equally of variation in market and transfer income (with the two negatively correlated). The English-speaking countries stand out as all having relatively low market incomes, but substantial variation in transfer income. Their low market incomes reflect low employment hours in Australia and primarily low hours in the UK and Ireland, while in the US and Canada low hours and low pay contribute equally. Comparing incomes prior to and after the 2008 financial crisis, the real disposable incomes of the poorest fifth decreased substantially in Greece, Spain and Ireland, but were relatively stable in other rich nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of multidimensional poverty is widely conceded and is increasingly engaging the interest of researchers and scholars, however, it is rarely used in explorations of the situation of Vietnam. Using national data from 9399 households in the 2012 Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey, we apply the integrated fuzzy relative approach for poverty, a completely novel methodology in this context, to explore the current patterns of multidimensional deprivation in Vietnam at different levels, including the incidence and intensity of the poverty of migrants’ households. Our findings reveal that these households are most deprived in the basic services dimension, while in the health dimension they are least deprived. A stark disparity exists between ethnic, and educational groups, and that female-headed households are less deprived, except in the durable asset dimension. The results further reveal that the situation of migrants’ households is better than that of their non-migrant counterparts in almost all non-monetary dimensions, but not in the monetary dimension. However, migration of family members leads to improvement in the income of the left behind families in the least developed areas in Vietnam. Our observation exposes differences in the complex nature of poverty in regional Vietnam from that of the current headcount measure of absolute income poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces an iterative methodology for the estimation of lower and upper bounds of poverty line. A poverty index based on the concept of fuzzy poverty line has also been introduced. Empirical illustrations are provided with Indian data for 2004-2005 and 2009-2010. It has been observed that for most of the states of India the government estimates of the poverty lines lie in between these two bounds. Poverty rates have been found to decline regardless whether lower or upper bounds of poverty lines is considered. Fuzzy poverty index has also declined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the Dual Cut-offs Approach to measure multidimensional poverty in China at the national, rural-urban, regional and provincial levels using the China Family Panel Studies data from 2010. Five dimensions and thirteen indicators are considered for the enumeration of poverty. It is observed that irrespective of cut-offs and weights, rural poverty in China is three to nine times of urban poverty. Social insurance, toilet and cooking fuel are the major indicators contributing to both rural and urban poverty. More urban households in the Western region are deprived, but urban poor households are deprived in more indicators in the Central region, and some Eastern provinces are poorer than some of the Central provinces. Furthermore, the paper identifies the provinces that contribute most to national poverty levels and finds the sources of poverty in those provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth strategy of Europe 2020 includes standards to be achieved by the EU member states in many crucial areas, such as in employment, innovation, education, poverty, climate and energy policy. The progress is regularly measured by a set of predetermined indicators in each area. Although Eurostat annually publishes the values of these indicators on both national and cross-national levels, not many studies have been conducted on the methodology of how the progress can be quantified. In this paper we propose a new, more efficient complex index that measures how close the member states are to the completion of the strategy, also considering the heterogeneity of growth paces across the countries. A series of calculations (such as the Mahalanobis distance between the actual and the target values of the indicators and a special self-weighting average constructed to eliminate country-specific differences in development) that were based on the original indicators showed that the EU seemed to lag behind in fulfilling its goals that had been set for 2020 in 2008-2013. It can be empirically proven that a successful cohesion policy is essential in order to fulfill the growth expectations set for a decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rationale of this study is to bring in a new area of poverty measurement based on household's access to basic assets from across Indian States. The major drawback of the average income based measure of poverty is that it is unable to distinguish between the structural and stochastic nature of poverty. This paper applies the asset based framework to poverty to distinguish the relationship between structural and stochastic poverty. The paper has used data from the India Human Development Survey 2005. The results indicate the importance of asset formation for long term poverty reduction. There is a need for targeting pointed policies towards the identified structural poor and stochastic non-poor as they are the most vulnerable and need asset building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a proposal for a basic income (BI) to cover the essential needs of citizens. First the factors that determine the amount spent on essential needs by individuals in Spain in 2010 are examined. Then the factors (number of family members, number of dependents, region of residence, characteristics of head of household, etc.) that determine essential needs are analyzed, based on the Spanish Household Budget Survey (2010), using quantile regression. The regression results are then used to draw up a BI proposal taking household type into account. The aim is to determine the amount of BI needed to protect people from social risks and the resulting insecurities while covering essential needs using those main factors. BI may thus be a powerful tool for combating poverty and inequality. Its main purpose is to meet the essential needs of individuals, so it could be used as a measure to guarantee a basic level of social and economic security for all members of society in place of current minimum income grants and other social benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]