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• We use the method of conjoint experiments to study subjective experiences of the 'new middle classes' in Africa. • The often-observed tendency of respondents to overreport membership in the middle of subjective class ladders is reduced in the experiment. • Income can serve as a proxy for subjective class status. However, non-monetary dimensions like assets, education, or work type also matter. • Perceptions of 'middle-classness' often overlap with relatively severe experiences of economic insecurity. Africa's so-called 'new middle classes' are receiving increasing attention. So far, much of this debate has been based on 'objective' criteria like household income or asset wealth. This article follows an emerging literature that asks Africans directly how they perceive class differences in their societies. In doing so we engage with the inherent multidimensionality of class experiences, which makes it harder for respondents to distinguish their own and others' class status and to determine which indicators should enter into a socially meaningful conceptualization of class. The article innovates by addressing these challenges with the help of a factorial or 'conjoint' experiment. Conjoint experiments are well suited for analyzing complex multidimensional phenomena like class because they allow researchers to distinguish the separate effects of individual treatment components on outcomes such as perceived class status. Using primary survey data from Kenya, we find that the shift to the experimental setting reduces respondents' problems to distinguish people's class status, especially at the middle of the socio-economic ladder. The analysis also shows that income can serve as a useful proxy for subjective class. Nonetheless, other non-monetary dimensions like assets, education, or employment type also enter with small but statistically significant effects. Finally, we find that perceptions of 'middle-classness' often overlap with relatively severe experiences of economic insecurity. This latter result suggests that Western concepts of economically secure middle classes should not be uncritically applied to a lower-income region like Africa. The results hold across a range of robustness and external validity tests using Kenyan and multi-country Afrobarometer survey data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We develop a unique dataset of 3 SDG indicators at district level in Lao PDR. • We find a positive correlation between poverty and stunting in 2005 and in 2015. • We find a negative correlation between these indicators and natural areas. • There are no significant relations between changes in indicators over time. • Variations between districts highlight the need for subnational analyses of SDGs. Monitoring the status and evolution of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is typically carried out at the national level. However, significant variation can exist within countries, and this may not be captured by aggregate statistics. Here, we develop a unique dataset representing indicators for three SDGs at a district level for Lao PDR. The indicators comprise prevalence of stunting (SDG 2, Zero hunger), poverty headcount (SDG 1, No Poverty), and share of natural area (SDG 15, Life on land) for two moments in time: 2005 and 2015. In both years, we find considerable variation among district-level outcomes for stunting and poverty. We also find that higher stunting and poverty rates are significantly correlated with higher shares of natural land in both years. This is consistent with the common perception of a trade-off between environmental outcomes and socioeconomic wellbeing. The correlation vanishes, however, when we consider changes in poverty, stunting, and natural area over the ten-year study period. This holds as well when we focus on agricultural land instead of natural areas. We observe that most regions show improvements in both stunting and poverty, albeit not always in a statistically significant sense. This points to synergistic development. Similarly, improvements in both indicators are associated with losses in natural areas in all regions, indicating a trade-off. These results suggest that both trade-offs and synergies between SDGs can arise at the district level, but that context and local conditions likely moderate the strength of these interactions. Our results highlight the importance of quantifying and monitoring sustainable development at the detailed subnational level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding bureaucratic corruption in access to public services and exit mechanisms particularly for the poor remains a core question in the economics of corruption literature. This paper examines the role of social networks in easing bureaucratic corruption in the demand for public services, using a bivariate ordered probit model and the sixth wave of the Afrobarometer survey from 36 African countries between 2014–2015. The main results suggest that not all citizens are victims of corrupt public officials, as social networks serve as substitutes or potential exit options out of corruption. However, individuals who face multiple deprivations lack access to public services as they are not able to use their social networks to ease access. Individuals who do not face difficulties in accessing public services employ social networks as complements to their corrupt acts to "get ahead". We discuss these findings in line with poverty eradication strategies and anti-corruption policies in Africa. • Corruption hinders public service access in Africa but not all citizens are victims. • Officials are likely to be more corrupt than citizens in demanding public services. • Corruption eases the poor's access to public services in Africa • Civic networks serve as an exit option from corruption, and a way to "get ahead". • Poverty eradication and anti-corruption are key for service access for the deprived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT) can help to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty by making beneficiaries more resilient against poverty. • No previous study has provided conclusive evidence for the long-run impact of CCT programs on beneficiaries' resilience against poverty. • This paper shows that child beneficiaries of the program are up to 8.4 percentage points more resilient against poverty when they become adults. • Program impact is realized after beneficiaries are in their early 20′s, and is only evident in female beneficiaries. • Overall, this study provides further justification for expanding CCTs or similar programs targeting children in less-developed countries. Conditional Cash Transfer programs (CCT) have become the prominent component of social assistance programs in many developing countries. A major objective of CCT programs is breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty and building a population resilient to adverse shocks that may push a person into poverty. The literature to date has not provided conclusive evidence for the long-run impact of CCT programs on beneficiaries' resilience against poverty. To fill this gap, I exploit the age-based eligibility thresholds and regional variation in the proportion of persons receiving benefits from the Jamaican CCT program to identify its long-run impact on resilience against poverty. I find that child beneficiaries of the program are up to 8.4 percentage points more resilient against poverty when they become adults than they would have been in the absence of the program. Furthermore, these benefits are only evident in females, and are realized after beneficiaries are in their early 20′s. Overall, this study provides further justification for the expansion of CCTs or similar programs targeting children living in less-developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We document the relationship between rural–urban migration and energy poverty in South Africa using a nationally representative panel dataset. Employing a dynamic difference-in-differences approach, we track changes in energy poverty for migrants and non-migrants over a ten-year period from 2008 to 2017. Our findings show that migrants to urban areas experience significant reductions in energy poverty, particularly in the use of traditional cooking fuels. Even when approximately 20% of new urban arrivals initially live in informal shack dwellings, where energy access gains are minimal, migration proves beneficial in the long run. Our study also explores energy poverty outcomes for both sending and receiving households, gender differences among migrants, and other amenities. • Rural to urban migrants experience large reductions in energy poverty. • Gains from migration occur for various measures of energy poverty. • Migrants into informal housing experience limited energy access gains initially but these grow over time. • Energy poverty in receiving households does not appear negatively affected by in-migrants. • Large gains in migration exist for other non-monetary amenities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent within-country studies of the 'resource curse' call into question whether mining booms benefit local populations living near mineral endowments in developing countries. In particular, mining booms have been associated with increased violence, localized inflation, increased poverty, and increased inequality. Relying on volatile gold prices that have caused mining booms in West African countries (Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Mali) since the mid-2000s, we test whether these booms have increased or decreased poverty and expenditure among populations that live near the mines. Based on detailed household panel data from Mali, our results generally show positive effects of gold price booms on households. Household expenditure increased, and poverty decreased during years of high gold prices for formal and artisanal mining areas, with artisanal mining having a stronger beneficial effect. The results suggest the booms have been more of an economic blessing than a curse in Mali. • We contribute new evidence on the economics of formal and informal mining in Africa. • We find positive effects of gold prices on households near artisanal and formal mines. • The results suggest positive economic spillovers from gold mining in West Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most impact evaluations of humanitarian cash transfer programmes use traditional metrics of poverty and study average effects of outcomes separately. We analyse the impact of the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN) cash programme on the multidimensional poverty of refugees in Turkey, using a purpose-built Refugee Multidimensional Poverty Index. We conduct a causal analysis of both average and distributional impacts of the ESSN on the incidence and intensity of multidimensional poverty, and decompose effects for separate dimensions and indicators of poverty. Results show that the ESSN significantly reduced the incidence and intensity of multidimensional poverty amongst its beneficiaries. Significant reductions are found in the dimensions of food security, living standards, health and education. This supports emerging claims that these types of programmes, still relatively new in humanitarian contexts, can improve multiple outcomes simultaneously. Reductions in the deprivation scores of the more deprived households stand out as a finding that outcome specific evaluations and multidimensional impact evaluations focusing on estimating average treatment effects would have missed, demonstrating the added value of the distributional analyses used. By learning from the largest humanitarian cash programme in the world, results provide important lessons for cash programmes on multidimensional poverty of refugees elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Estimates of global poverty as reported in the Sustainable Development Goals assume that a household of six people needs three times as many resources as a household of two people (i.e., there are no economies of scale in household consumption). • This paper assesses the sensitivity of global poverty estimates to assuming that there are economies of scale in household consumption. • The findings indicate that regional poverty rates do not change substantially when incorporating household-level economies of scale. • While the regional profile does not change much, the identification of who is poor changes substantially with the poverty status of more than 260 million people changing when allowing for economies of scale in household consumption. • The findings offer evidence that dividing total household resources by the square-root of household size performs reasonably well in identifying poor households. Estimates of the number of people living in extreme poverty, as reported by the World Bank, figure prominently in international development dialogue and policy. An assumption underpinning these poverty counts is that there are no economies of scale in household size – a family of six needs three times as much as a family of two. This paper examines the sensitivity of global estimates of extreme poverty to changing this assumption. The analysis rests on nationally representative household surveys from 162 countries covering 97.5 percent of the population estimated to be in extreme poverty in 2019. We compare current-method estimates with a constant-elasticity scale adjustment that divides total household consumption or income not by household size but by the square-root of household size. While the regional profile of extreme poverty is robust to this change, the determination of who is poor changes substantially – the poverty status of 264 million people changes. We then discuss evidence suggesting that the assumption of economies of scale more closely aligns with non-consumption measures of poverty. Specifically, we draw from existing literature of subjective assessments of poverty and wellbeing, along with new empirical evidence from examining the partial correlation (conditional on household size) between the two measures of poverty and a set of presumed poverty covariates (i.e., years of schooling, literacy, asset index, working in agriculture, access to electricity, piped drinking water, improved sanitation). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We examine impacts of Malawi's flagship cash transfer on youth multi-dimensional wellbeing across six domains. • Transfers improve education, physical health, emotional wellbeing and mental health, and sexual and reproductive health. • Limited or no impacts are found for two domains: HIV risk and time use. • Results highlight the potential of social protection to promote investments and wellbeing among at-risk youth. • More intentional gender- and youth-sensitive designs may facilitate further impacts on safe transitions to adulthood. As national social safety nets are expanding in Africa and globally, evidence on the impact of programs on youth transitions can help guide future investment and program design decisions. This paper examines the effects of Malawi's flagship cash transfer program on safe transitions to adulthood among youth living in households experiencing ultra-poverty. The evaluation was a cluster-randomized control trial implemented over three years using panel data on youth aged 13 to 19 at baseline. Household receipt of bi-monthly transfers led to improvements in four out of six outcome domains: 1) education, 2) physical health, 3) emotional wellbeing and mental health, and 4) sexual and reproductive health. There were limited or no impacts on outcomes related to HIV risk and time use. Results imply that similar programs in the region may also facilitate safe youth transitions. Nonetheless, more intentional gender- and youth-specific designs may have promise for more holistic impacts, and further evidence is needed on longer-term effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Poorer countries are less likely to report COVID-19 statistics in the initial period of the pandemic. • COVID-19 infections and deaths show a marked decline in periods with mitigation measures. • In periods without mitigation measures, growth of COVID-19 infections and deaths was higher in poorer countries. • In periods with mitigation measures, growth of COVID-19 infections and deaths was lower in poorer countries. • Mitigation measures were more effective in countries with high shares of population living in poverty. It is well documented that COVID-19 contagion and mortality rates differed systematically across countries. Less is known, however, on whether these differences could be explained by socioeconomic conditions that may determine both the extent to which individuals voluntarily take protection measures in the absence of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) or comply with imposed NPIs, when these are in place. Using data from 185 countries, we examine associations of COVID-19 infection and mortality dynamics with socioeconomic conditions, as measured by poverty rates, in periods before and after NPIs have been imposed. We find that, in the initial period of the pandemic, when no NPIs were in place, daily growth of COVID-19 cases and deaths are positively associated with the share of the population living in poverty, whereas, in the following period, when NPIs were implemented, these associations turn negative. We argue that these results could be explained by the fact that NPIs are expected to be more effective in countries with high poverty rates where voluntary physical distancing is low and physical distancing practices are more responsive to imposed measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Explore the relationship between energy poverty and public health of 185 countries. • Apply a partial linear function coefficient method to analyze the relationship. • Results show that energy poverty has a significant negative influence on public health. • Urbanization level has a mediating effect on the link among energy poverty and public health. • Countries that exceed the threshold of urbanization significantly reduce the adverse influence of energy poverty on public health. Research on energy poverty and its impact has been quite extensive, but the impact of such poverty on public health is still lacking. This paper thus presents the relationship between energy poverty and public health of 185 countries from 2000 to 2020 as well as the role of urbanization development levels in this nexus. To achieve this goal, this study uses a partial linear function coefficient (PLFC) method to analyze the relationship between them, which can also clearly exhibit the non-linear impact of energy poverty on public health. First, both linear and non-linear regression results show that energy poverty has significantly negative impacts on public health. Second, urbanization level plays a significant moderating effect in the energy poverty and public health nexus, meaning that energy poverty affects public health under the influence of urbanization. According to the PLFC model results, countries that exceed the threshold of urbanization have significantly reduced the adverse effects of energy poverty on public health. Third, this study investigates the heterogeneous impact of energy poverty across different regions, comparing the Sub-Saharan Africa region with other areas. The results reveal in the Sub-Saharan Africa region that affordable energy under the influence of urbanization provides a new pathway for improving public health in that region, whereas this effect is considerably smaller in other regions. Additionally, a series of tests confirm the robustness of the results. This paper offers a reference for the development and implementation of renewable energy-related public health policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We analyze development impacts of unconditional intergovernmental transfer in the Philippines with long history of fiscal decentralization. • The rule-based transfer scheme allows for causal analysis through applying the instrumental variable method. • The municipalities and cities benefited from the transfers in terms of higher household income per capita and poverty reduction in the long run. • The improvement of development outcomes mainly occurs in small and less-developed local governments. • The behavior of local spending and taxation shed light on channels through which transfers may affect income and poverty. Despite that subnational governments are key actors in the provision of public services, there are concerns about whether providing additional funding to them in developing countries can raise the living standards of local communities. This study investigates the impact of intergovernmental transfers on development outcomes at municipality and city levels in the Philippines from 1994 to 2015. Since the revenue-sharing mechanism between central and local governments in the Philippines follows a pre-determined formula, we leverage this feature and apply the instrumental variable (IV) method for estimation. Our results suggest that the household disposable income per capita increases by 9.6% in the long run due to extra transfers of 1,000 pesos per capita in the Philippine local governments. The poverty rate has also decreased by approximately five percentage points in the long run. The improvement of development outcomes mainly occurs in small and less-developed local governments. Finally, we examine the effect of intergovernmental transfers on local expenditure and taxation; then we discuss how the results of local finance behavior can explain the observed developmental impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Initially poor urban households in Nigeria, Tanzania and Ethiopia experience an increase in well-being, while richer households are vulnerable to falling back into poverty. • Despite this convergence, there is considerable movement into and out of poverty over time. • The consumption floor remains relatively sticky, meaning there may be a poverty trap at the lowest level of well-being. Despite considerable achievements in the reduction of poverty over the last decades, poverty remains conspicuously high and profound. While fast urban population growth, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, has contributed to poverty reduction, new development challenges like the urbanisation of poverty emerge. However, little is known about the state and persistence of poverty in urban areas. This study investigates urban poverty within the theory of poverty traps among urban households in Nigeria, Tanzania and Ethiopia, three countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with large urban populations and fast urban population growth. Using household panel data from the World Bank's Living Standard Measurement Study between 2008 and 2015, we test whether consumption-based poverty traps exist in these contexts. Our results show that initially poor households experience an increase in well-being over time, while richer households face a decline and remain vulnerable to falling back into poverty. As households converge to consumption levels around the $3.20 poverty line, there is considerable movement into and out of poverty over time. However, a sticky consumption floor shows that despite upward dynamics amongst the poor, some are being left behind. Finally, we argue that improved urban data is needed to identify the vulnerable middle, and to design structural policies preventing them from falling back into poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Consumption inequality within families is widespread among refugees and surrounding communities in East Africa. • Refugee children are up to three times more likely to be poor than adults. • Refugee children not only suffer from the experience of forced migration, but also from low nutrition and a disproportionately high poverty risk. • A small set of easily observable traits predict child poverty in refugee settlements remarkably well. • There is scope for improving the targeting of child poverty in these contexts at low cost. There are now more violent conflicts globally than at any time in the past three decades, resulting in the largest forced displacement crisis ever recorded. Understanding at a granular level the well-being of refugees is essential to inform successful poverty alleviation strategies and unlock refugees' potential. As forced displacement can lead to a reorganization of a family's structure, we use a structural model in combination with data from refugee camps and surrounding communities in Uganda and Kenya to estimate the allocation of consumption within families. We compute poverty rates that account for intra-household inequality, finding that refugee children can be up to three times more likely to be poor than adults. So, refugee children not only suffer from the experience of forced migration, but also from potentially low nutrition and a disproportionately higher poverty risk. Using a supervised machine learning algorithm, we show that a small set of observable traits, such as a child's age, household composition, and access to sanitation and clean water, predict child poverty in refugee settlements and surrounding communities remarkably well, often better than per-capita household expenditure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Higher occurrence of violence causes a lower adoption of measures to prevent infection by Covid-19. • Households headed by females are more willing to adopt preventive measures against the spread of Covid-19. • The adoption of preventive measures, in the midst of violent conflict, is weaker in poor compared to non-poor households. How does violent conflict affect the spread of Covid-19? In this paper we analyze how violent conflict influences the adoption of preventative measures and infection rate in a very poor, conflict-affected country, Burkina Faso. We use a unique panel of 1,919 households surveyed during the first six months of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and merge these data with indicators of violence at the municipality and regional level. Infection data are leveraged from test centers located across 65 municipalities in the country. We find a lower adoption rate of preventive measures, and a higher infection rate in areas affected by violence. We also find that poverty appears to play a role for understanding individuals' adoption rate of preventive measures. Closure of health centers in violence-prone areas is a potential mechanism that seems to drive our results. We argue that political interventions towards peace and stability also help to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We document a positive relationship between empowerment and life satisfaction in rural Bangladesh. • Empowerment is measured using a multidimensional index. • Men and women draw satisfaction from different domains of empowerment. • The findings are robust across household fixed effects and instrumental variable models. In this paper, we examine the relationship between life satisfaction and empowerment in rural Bangladesh. We analyse this relationship across region, religion, gender and income categories using data from the BIHS 2012. This dataset has detailed socio-economic information on co-resident couples and also provides information on the empowerment of individuals within the household. We correct for endogeneity both by including a range of community and household fixed effects to capture the impact of omitted variables as well as by estimating an instrumental variable model in which the average participation rate in community activities is our identifying variable. Our results are robust and indicate a positive relationship between empowerment and life satisfaction. Analysing the sub-components of the empowerment index, we find that women draw less satisfaction from having a say in production decisions and use of borrowed money but gain more satisfaction from membership in groups. The puzzle of "contented women" (i.e. the gender gap in life satisfaction) therefore is partly explained by the fact that men and women differ in the way they draw satisfaction from different domains of empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We estimate the impact of mitigation goals on future poverty and inequality trends. • Stringent mitigation plans may slowdown poverty reduction in developing countries. • Global poverty in 2030 is estimated to be 4% higher than in the baseline scenario. • A minor and heterogeneous effect is detectable on income distribution. • Climate transfers have a positive effect, but do not offset total poverty increase. The paper investigates potential synergies and trade-offs between emission reduction policies and sustainable development objectives. Specifically, it provides an ex-ante assessment that the impacts of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), submitted under the Paris Agreement, will have on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of poverty eradication (SDG1) and reduced income inequality (SDG10). Through this research we aim at answering the following questions: does mitigation policy always imply a trade-off with development objectives? If this is the case, what is the magnitude of the effect of the new international climate architecture on poverty and inequality? By combining an empirical analysis with a modelling exercise, the paper estimates the future trends of poverty prevalence and inequality across countries in a reference scenario and under a climate mitigation policy with alternative revenue recycling schemes. Our study finds that a full implementation of the emission reduction contributions, stated in the NDCs, is projected to slow down the effort to reduce poverty by 2030 (+4.2% of the population below the poverty line compared to the baseline scenario), especially in countries that have proposed relatively more stringent mitigation targets and suffer higher policy costs. Conversely, the impact of climate policy on inequality shows opposite sign but remains very limited. If financial support for mitigation action in developing countries is provided through an international climate fund, the prevalence of poverty will be slightly reduced at the aggregate level, but the country-specific effect depends on the relative size of funds flowing to beneficiary countries and on their economic structure. The output of our analysis contributes to the emerging literature on the linkages between climate change policy and sustainable development, although we capture only partially the complex system of interrelations and feedbacks proper of the SDGs. Moreover, due to its policy relevance, it further enriches the debate on the implementation of the Paris Agreement and its climate finance tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The palm oil industry is neither sustainable nor a viable development model. • Certification represents a technical fix which neglects underlying dynamics of power, class, gender and accumulation. • The fetishised commodity 'certified sustainable palm oil' has no impact on the regional scale of expansion. • Working conditions in the plantations and mills entrench social inequality and poverty. • Alternative sustainability futures emerge from struggles over land rights, working conditions and environmental justice. Palm Oil is a highly successful flex crop that has become a development engine in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. If the industry-led stakeholder initiative, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is to be believed, there is also a mechanism in place that can guarantee sustainable production along the supply chain. But what counts as sustainable and what does this mean on the ground in producing countries like Malaysia and Indonesia? This article argues that the form of sustainability offered by certification schemes such as the RSPO fetishes the commodity palm oil in order to assuage critical consumer initiatives in the North. This technical-managerial solution is part of a larger project: the "post-political" climate politics regime (Swyngedouw) that attempts to "green" the status quo. But certification obscures the problem that it is not the commodity itself but the social relations of nature in the production of the commodity that need to become sustainable. It will be shown that despite certification, these social relations of nature are contested in Southeast Asia. Social and political struggles over land rights, workers' rights and environmental justice are repoliticising debates over palm oil, opening up trajectories of eco-social transformation that make alternative sustainability futures for palm oil possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Oil palm is promoted to alleviate poverty, despite limited social impact evidence. • The social impacts of oil palm plantations are not uniformly positive nor negative. • Improved welfare had occurred for plantations developed in market-based villages. • The opposite was found for plantations developed in subsistence-based villages. • Oil palm expansion in remote forest areas requires careful planning and evaluation. Palm oil producing countries regularly promote the positive impact of oil palm agriculture on poverty alleviation, despite limited evidence about the contribution of this crop on village well-being. Past evaluations that quantify the social impact of oil palm are dominated by localized studies, which complicate the detection of generalizable findings. Moreover, only a few of these evaluations are based on rigorous case-control studies, which limits the robustness of the conclusions. Here we examined the association between the development of oil palm plantations and change in objective or material well-being between 2000 and 2014 across villages in Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. We applied a matching method to evaluate the impacts of oil palm plantations across different aspects of well-being, accounting for varying time delays in the accrual and realization of benefits after plantation development. Our study reveals that the social impacts of oil-palm plantations are not uniformly positive, nor negative, and have varied systematically with biophysical locations and baseline socioeconomic conditions of nearby communities prior to oil palm development. Plantations developed in villages with low to moderate forest cover, in which the majority of communities already relied on market-oriented livelihoods, were associated with improved socioeconomic well-being compared to villages without oil palm development. However, we found the opposite for plantations developed in remote villages with higher forest cover, in which the majority of communities previously relied on subsistence-based livelihoods. Overall, oil palm growing villages were more associated with reduced rate of improvement of social and environmental well-being compared to villages without oil palm development, regardless of location and baseline community livelihoods. Our findings highlight an urgent need for careful evaluation and planning in the development of oil palm agriculture in remote forested areas. For oil palm regions that have been developed, our study shows that unsustainable livelihoods, increased socioeconomic disparity, and environmental issues remain major challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We relate city and town growth to annual poverty rates for 497 Indonesian districts. • Satellite observations of night-time lights are used to measure urban growth. • Spatial econometric models show an important role for spillovers. • Growth of big city lit area is positively associated with poverty. • Expansion of Indonesia's secondary towns is negatively associated with poverty. There is increasing interest in assessing whether big city growth has effects that differ from the effects of secondary town growth, especially in terms of impacts on poverty. It can be difficult to study these issues with typical sub-national economic data because urban growth often occurs outside the administrative boundaries of cities. An emerging literature therefore uses remote sensing to measure patterns of urban growth without being restricted by limitations of data for administrative areas. We add to this literature by combining poverty estimates from annual socio-economic surveys fielded from 2011 to 2019 with remote sensing data on night-time lights for 41 big cities and for secondary towns in 497 Indonesian districts. We measure growth on the extensive (lit area) and intensive (brightness within lit area) margins, and distinguish between growth of big cities and of secondary towns and our spatial econometric models allow global and local spillovers. The extensive margin growth of secondary towns is associated with lower rates of poverty but no similar association holds for big city growth. These patterns corroborate earlier findings from India. Potential productivity advantages of big cities and concerns about agricultural land loss to expanding towns may imply that urban growth patterns that favour big cities are warranted, while on the other hand these new results suggest, from a poverty reduction point of view, that policies to favour secondary towns may be warranted. Policymakers in countries like Indonesia therefore face difficult trade-offs when developing their urbanization strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We propose a country-level index, the "housing environment for protection" (HEP) index. • Using DHS data for 41 developing countries, this index combines seven easily-monitored indicators of housing conditions. • Only 8% of households have all identified housing conditions, and only 3% of households in Sub-Saharan Africa. • A poor HEP is associated with worse health outcomes among children, even after controlling for income, poverty, and literacy. • We find that children in the developing world face housing environments that offer only very limited protection from illness. We propose and test an internationally-comparable country-level index of the adequacy of the housing environment for protecting children from ill-health. The housing environment for protection (HEP) index combines seven easily-monitored indicators of housing conditions related to communications, density of occupants, toilet and handwashing facilities, the use of finished construction materials, and cooking facilities. In calibrating and validating the HEP index, the paper uses infant mortality, the incidence of child illnesses and child stunting. We calculate the HEP index for the 41 developing countries with complete recent data from the Demographic and Health Surveys. We find that only 8% of households fully comply with all our identified housing conditions, though there is considerable variation across countries, with full compliance varying from virtually zero to almost 60% of households. A poor HEP is found to be associated with significantly worse health outcomes among children. This finding is robust to adding controls for likely confounders such as income and poverty. Our results suggest that reducing the incidence of ill-health among children is in part achieved by reducing income poverty, but also depends crucially on how much income gains tend to directly improve housing conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• China's quest under President Xi to eradicate absolute poverty has prompted changes in local cadres' appraisal system. • The appraisal change slows GDP growth but lifts rural income among the poorest in the short term. • This is because local governments diverted financial and manpower resources to the poverty-stricken population. • The GDP impact is mainly from counties entirely removing GDP indicators and not from those merely reducing the weightage. • This suggests that political incentives affect local trade-offs between poverty alleviation and short-term economic growth. • Other developing countries with similar top-to-bottom hierarchical government structures can tap on China's experience. Developing countries need deft strategies to implement policies such as poverty alleviation especially when central and local governments face a misalignment of objectives. We explore this issue with China's anti-poverty drive under President Xi Jinping using county-level data from 2012 to 2018 and a fixed effects model to investigate the impacts of a switch in cadres' performance appraisal to focus on eradicating poverty instead of economic growth. Our study shows that the appraisal change slows GDP growth but lifts rural income among the poorest as resources are reallocated to projects that improve their livelihoods. Heterogeneity analyses further indicate that the GDP impact from the appraisal shift is mainly ascribed to counties that entirely remove GDP-related indicators, and not so much to those that merely reduce the weightage. Furthermore, using data such as fiscal gap and sectoral added value, we explore mechanisms through which the performance appraisal shift affects GDP growth. The experience of China shows that political incentives in a centralized system can facilitate the implementation of equity-targeted public policies, but this efficiency is not cost-free as economic growth might be compromised. Therefore, our study serves as a reference for other developing countries that wish to explore the pathway of applying public governance in poverty alleviation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We analyze Myanmar's rice value chain during economic collapse and political instability caused by a military coup. • Rice processing and trade continued, assuring availability of rice in most retail markets, illustrating the resilience of the value chain. • Increased distribution margin led to 11 percent higher average retail prices, implying welfare losses of almost USD 0.5 billion. • Localized violence near sellers and buyers, distances traveled, and distance of vendors from borders linked to increased rice price dispersion. • Prioritizing the easing of transport restrictions and facilitating cheap and safe spatial arbitrage of food products essential. The large majority of extreme poor in the world lives in fragile states. Yet, despite the enormous importance of these areas for global poverty and food insecurity, there is relatively little research examining how agricultural value chains, crucial for assuring food security, respond and adapt to such contexts. This paper analyzes Myanmar's rice value chain – its most important staple and biggest value chain – during the economic collapse and political instability caused by a military coup in early 2021. It relies on unique data collected with a large sample of rice retailers and millers before and after the coup. Despite many challenges in the rice value chain after the coup – most importantly linked to banking and transport – rice processing and trade continued, assuring availability of rice in most retail markets and illustrating the resilience of the value chain to such major shock. While processing margins were mostly stable, an increased distribution margin (between rice millers and retailers) led to 11 percent higher average retail prices after the coup, implying welfare losses of almost USD 0.5 billion for the country. Using a market-pair regression method, we further find that localized violence near sellers and buyers, distances traveled, and distance of vendors from borders are associated with significantly increased rice price dispersion between rice retailers and mills. Despite the amalgam of problems to address in such settings, prioritizing the easing of transport restrictions and facilitating cheap and safe spatial arbitrage of food products would likely help prevent further food price inflation, assure higher farm prices, and therefore improve welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • We study a large-scale expansion of integrated center-based care in Colombia. • We find large positive effects on receptive vocabulary that persist after 5 years. • The impact implies a reduction of 35% in the cognitive socioeconomic gap. • We report positive but less robust effects on children's nutritional status. • Integrated early childhood care can be effective and sustainable at large-scale. Abstract The focus in developing countries is shifting from increasing access to early childhood care services to improving its quality. In light of the inclusion of early childhood development in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, there has emerged a global call for early childhood programs that integrate nutrition, health and development components. However, large-scale studies of integrated early childhood interventions are scarce in developing countries, and thus, little is known about its effectiveness and sustainability. In this paper we study the immediate and medium-run effects of a large-scale expansion of an integrated package of services including care, education, health and nutrition on child growth and development, by analyzing the expansion of the Colombian national early childhood strategy known as " From Zero to Forever " between 2011 and 2013. The results indicate that the increased access to integrated center-based care had a large immediate effect on vocabulary that persists five years into the intervention, and less robust effects on nutritional status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Economic analyses of poverty focus on who is poor and their profile. • Anthropological analyses focus on lived experiences and social relations of poverty. • Differences between the approaches can be traced to different philosophical commitments. • We illustrate these issues for Mozambique, using household surveys and qualitative fieldwork. • We argue against a forced marriage of the two approaches. Abstract Motivated by the siloed nature of much poverty research, as well as the challenge of finding inclusive operational definitions of poverty, this study reflects on the merits of seeking to reconcile economic (quantitative) and anthropological (qualitative) analytical approaches. Drawing on detailed evidence from Mozambique, we highlight fundamental philosophical tensions in poverty research along three main axes: social ontology (what is the form of social reality?); (b) epistemology (what can be known about poverty?); and (c) aetiology (how is poverty produced?). We argue the quantitative tradition is rooted in an atomistic view of the social world, which is allied to an etic epistemology in which causes and effects are treated as analytically separable. Anthropological work in Mozambique is anchored in an emic perspective, where the diverse forms of poverty are revealed through investigation of their generative mechanisms. This provides a view of poverty as a relational process of social marginalization and directs attention to the diversity of lived-experiences, as well as structural factors that limit individuals' agency. In clarifying their distinct philosophical commitments, we contend that a forced empirical marriage of the two approaches may be unhelpful. Instead, we recommend the virtues of each approach are leveraged toward genuine mutual dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Poverty convergence remains absent across Less Developed Countries (LDCs) during 1980–2014. • In contrast, there exists strong poverty convergence across Sub-Saharan African (SSA) economies during the same period. • Poverty convergence is absent across LDCs because initial poverty weakens the effectiveness of growth in reducing poverty. • Strong growth effect dominating adverse initial poverty effect on growth effectiveness explains poverty convergence in SSA. • This study finds no direct link between higher initial poverty and slower subsequent growth identified in Ravallion (2012). Abstract The literature on poverty convergence is sparse and much of the empirical evidence relies on Ravallion (2012) who found a lack of poverty convergence across some ninety Less Developed Countries (LDCs) during 1980–2007. This paper revisits cross-country poverty convergence using data from the same sources but an extended period of 1980–2014. We find that while poverty convergence remains absent across LDCs, it is present in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) during the extended period. Initial poverty canceling the effectiveness of growth in reducing poverty explains the lack of poverty convergence across LDCs; while a strong growth effect dominating the adverse effect of initial poverty on growth effectiveness explains the strong poverty convergence found in SSA. A direct adverse link between initial poverty and subsequent growth – which Ravallion (2012) recognized as the main impediment to poverty convergence during 1980–2007 – is not found in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Providing aid recipient's their most valued intervention doesn't improve effectiveness of the intervention. • Cash transfers equal to the cost of common development programs have the same impact as the programs. • Cash transfers increase feelings of autonomy and respect compared to non-cash interventions. Abstract This study compares the impact of several common development programs (agricultural extension, subsidized agricultural inputs and poultry transfers) to cash transfers equal to the cost of each program. Prior to program delivery, recipients were asked their valuation for each program (i.e., their cash indifference point between cash and the program) as a proxy for their preference between cash and the program. Subsequently, recipients were randomly assigned to receive cash or a program. Six months after delivery of cash and programs, we do not find that individuals who receive the intervention they value most are different from others in terms of consumption, food security, assets, psychological well-being or feelings of autonomy, and can rule out effects of any meaningful size. When comparing cash transfers directly to common development programs, the point estimates indicate no difference in impacts and confidence intervals rule out large differences. We do find that cash transfers increase feelings of autonomy and respect compared to non-cash interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The paper critically reviews the arguments for and against both employment guarantees and income guarantees when viewed as rights-based policy instruments for poverty reduction in a developing economy. Decentralized implementation of the right-to-work poses serious challenges in poor places. Evidence on India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Act does not suggest that the potential for either providing work when needed or reducing current poverty is realized, despite pro-poor targeting. Instead, work is often rationed by local leaders, and the poverty impact is small when all the costs are considered. The option of income support using cash transfers also has both pros and cons. Widely-used methods for finely targeting cash transfers tend to miss many poor people, and can discourage those reached from earning extra income. Yet it cannot be presumed that switching to a universal basic income will reduce poverty more than workfare or finely-targeted transfers. That is an empirical question and the answer will undoubtedly vary across settings, belying the generalizations often heard from advocates. Nonetheless, more incentive-neutral, universal and/or state-contingent transfer schemes merit consideration in settings in which existing public spending is skewed against poor people and/or there is scope for raising taxes on the rich. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • We use China Household Income Project (CHIP) 2013 data to systematically evaluate rural Dibao's targeting performance. • Rural Dibao's targeting performance was better based on multidimensional poverty than based on income poverty. • Dibao's intra-village targeting accounted for more of its targeting performance than inter-village targeting. • Political elite capture effects existed in Dibao's community-based targeting. • We find heterogeneous political elite capture effects, with those from close relatives larger than from household members. Abstract Using nationally representative rural household survey data from the 2013 China Household Income Project (CHIP) and decomposable targeting differential measures, this article systematically evaluates rural Dibao's targeting performance based on both income and multidimensional poverty measures, and investigates the effects of political elite capture in its community-based targeting (CBT) implementation. We found that rural Dibao's targeting performance was quite poor based on income poverty standards. When based on multidimensional poverty, Dibao's targeting performance was better than based on income poverty. Dibao's intra-village targeting accounted for more of its targeting performance than inter-village targeting. We also found political elite capture effects to exist for both Dibao participation and transfer value received. Moreover, the political elite capture effect from close relatives was larger in magnitude than that from household members. Having a household member being a village leader in the village of residence had no significant elite capture effect, whereas having members with a political leader position outside the village of residence or being a non-leader political party member was associated with a greater chance of welfare participation. These findings suggest that targeting errors in developing countries' CBT welfare programs such as China's rural Dibao is still substantial and political elite capture may be one important reason for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • A carbon price of USD 30/tCO 2 reduces income up to 2.5% for low-income households. • Effects on income distribution are mostly driven by differences in energy expenditure shares. • An inverse U-shape energy expenditure to income relationship explains distributional effects. • Distributional effects of carbon pricing tend to be progressive in low-income countries. Abstract Even though concerns about adverse distributional implications for the poor are one of the most important political challenges for carbon pricing, the existing literature reveals ambiguous results. For this reason, we assess the expected incidence of moderate carbon price increases for different income groups in 87 mostly low- and middle-income countries. Building on a consistent dataset and method, we find that for countries with per capita incomes of below USD 15,000 per year (at PPP-adjusted 2011 USD) carbon pricing has, on average, progressive distributional effects. We also develop a novel decomposition technique to show that distributional outcomes are primarily determined by differences among income groups in consumption patterns of energy, rather than of food, goods or services. We argue that an inverse U-shape relationship between energy expenditure shares and income explains why carbon pricing tends to be regressive in countries with relatively higher income. Since these countries are likely to have more financial resources and institutional capacities to deal with distributional issues, our findings suggest that mitigating climate change, raising domestic revenue and reducing economic inequality are not mutually exclusive, even in low- and middle-income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • The framework Peasant moral community economies draws on community economies, household moral economy and peasant moral economy. • This framework well captures relevant moral dimensions of collective action. • The moral economies it found were contradictory: we saw both gender transformations and increased women's time poverty. • Gender transformations and time poverty both predict the durability of women's cooperatives and reinforce female altruism. • Support for women's efforts for sustainable livelihoods may be improved by recognizing contradictory moral economies, gender and time poverty. Abstract The Mexican state has promoted women's group-based income-generating projects for nearly three decades. Although most state-supported income-generating projects discontinue after external funding ends, some continue to operate. While existing studies have highlighted several reasons for dis-/continuation, none have focused on the role of moral obligations in shaping women's everyday livelihood practices and few have closely examined context dependent external factors. In order to provide more effective support for women's collective efforts to strengthen sustainable livelihoods, we developed the framework peasant moral community economies. This framework draws on that of household moral economy , community economies and peasant moral economy as informed by feminist scholars' recognition of gender as process. Through our framework we investigated how intra-group dynamics and groups' relationships within their members' households and communities in their own specific environments shape group operations through examination of three initially state-funded women only but now long-running women-led cooperatives in rural Hidalgo, Mexico. Data was collected through surveys, focus group discussions, and in-depth interviews with cooperative members, their families and community authorities supplemented by secondary literature review and observation. We found that context specific manifestations of reciprocity and the right to subsistence were common to both household and community arrangements. While context specific manifestations of these moral principles enabled new gendered subjectivities that contributed to gender transformations and livelihood production, we also found that the same principles reinforced female altruism and exacerbated women's time poverty. The framework of peasant moral community economies allowed us to see how both contradictory gender transformations and time poverty provided conditions that supported the durability of the cooperatives. We conclude that support for women's collective efforts for sustainable livelihoods may be more effective if we recognise how livelihoods are produced also outside the cooperative by paying particular attention to context specific contradictory gender and moral dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • I examine the targeting performance of and access to social pensions in India. • Exclusion of poor older people continues to be a widespread problem. • The overall benefits from targeting are very limited. • Below Poverty Line (BPL) card as eligibility criterion can be misused by non-poor individuals. • Poor older people lacking a BPL card and/or political connections appear to be left behind. Abstract Whether social transfers should be targeted or universal is an unsolved debate particularly relevant for the implementation of social protection schemes in developing countries. While the limited availability of public resources encourages targeting, the difficulty to identify the poor promotes a universal allocation of benefits. To address this question, this study examines the targeting performance of and access to a social welfare scheme for an increasingly vulnerable group – India's poor older people. The results show that during a time period of social pension reforms, exclusion and inclusion errors were successfully reduced but the exclusion of poor older people continues to be extremely high. Comparing the existing targeting approach to a random allocation, I show that the benefits of targeting are limited. The reforms aimed at increasing the transparency of social pension allocation indeed made the Below Poverty Line ration card the most important determinant of access to social pensions for older people. However, this focus on the ration card promoted by the national government has its own weaknesses. Non-poor older people exploit the unwarranted possession of this ration card and results suggest that after the reforms individuals with direct connections to local government officials are more likely to access social pension benefits. The current targeting approach seems to be beneficial for well-connected older individuals while many poor older people typically lacking these connections lag behind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Effects of commercialization on poverty are analyzed in Kenyan small farm sector. • Commercialization increases income and reduces multidimensional poverty. • Income gains are larger for better-off households. • Effects in terms of reducing basic needs deprivations are strongest among poorest households. • Commercialization contributes effectively to achieving sustainable development goals. Abstract Global poverty rates have declined considerably, but the number of people living in extreme poverty remains high. Many of the world's poor are smallholder farmers. Agricultural commercialization – meaning a shift from subsistence to more market-oriented farming – can play a central role in improving smallholder welfare. Previous studies evaluated the impact of agricultural commercialization on income poverty, but whether income gains from commercialization are really used for satisfying basic needs was hardly analyzed up till now. Here, we evaluate the effect of commercialization on income poverty, as well as on the multidimensional poverty index that looks at deprivations in terms of education, nutrition, health, and other dimensions of living standard. Using data from 805 farm households in Kenya, we estimate average treatment effects and also analyze impact heterogeneity with quantile regressions. Results show that commercialization reduces both income poverty and multidimensional poverty. The magnitude of the income gains is positively correlated with income level, meaning that market-linkage support for marginalized farms may be needed to avoid rising inequality. However, the effect in terms of reducing basic needs deprivations is stronger for the poorest households, suggesting that agricultural commercialization contributes effectively to achieving the sustainable development goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Rural charcoal producers were heterogeneous in production scales and demographic characteristics. • The size of the urban market affects both the type of rural producer and their scales of production. • Rural producers were highly dependent on charcoal income, contributing 38–95% of total gross household income. • Small-scale producers were proportionally the most dependent on charcoal income. • The existence of households 'trapped' in low production may be a consequence of larger urban markets. Abstract Sub-Saharan Africa's charcoal sector is rarely considered a mechanism for rural development or poverty alleviation; instead, current regulations often marginalise rural producers. The development of a sustainable sector, that does not further marginalise rural populations, is restricted by limited understanding of these stakeholders. We assess the heterogeneity of rural producers supplying two differentially sized urban charcoal markets in Mozambique. Drawing on data from 767 household surveys, our findings suggest that the size of the urban market affects the type of rural producer and their scales of production. Overall household income of producers supplying the larger urban market were proportionally more dependent on charcoal for income generation; small-scale producers in particular relied most on charcoal income, contributing >95% of household incomes. In contrast, producers supplying the smaller market had more diversified incomes, and were thus less dependent on charcoal income. Larger-scale producers were generally wealthier; their absolute incomes were higher and they were proportionally the least dependent on charcoal income. Further findings suggest that rural charcoal production was not necessarily the domain of the poorest of the poor and the existence of producers trapped in small-scale production may be a consequence of larger urban markets, rather than an intrinsic characteristic of the sector. Predicted growth of smaller urban areas and associated higher demand for charcoal will provide substantial opportunities for rural income generation, most likely leading to shifts in producers and production scales. Rather than transferring existing formal approaches, which marginalise rural stakeholders, small urban areas provide opportunities to develop equitable production systems, with potential to deliver sustainable energy and rural development. The heterogeneity of rural producers calls for better-targeted interventions that incorporate the importance of charcoal production for rural livelihoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • We study the direct and the general equilibrium effects of scaling-up the South African Child Support Grant. • We use a recursive bottom-up/top-down CGE-microsimulation approach with three different financing scenarios. • The proposed reform brings small positive impacts at the macro level and a decrease in poverty. • Direct and indirect factors contribute to the poverty change but unlikely to be significant, with the direct being prevalent. • Important progressive heterogeneous are found, with the richest percentiles slightly deteriorating their welfare. Abstract Social grant schemes have become an important component of many developing countries’ inclusive growth strategies with governments increasingly investing in large-scale cash transfer programs. South Africa’s Child Support Grant (CSG) is one of the largest cash transfer systems in Africa. However, child poverty remains high in the country, leading to calls to expand the CSG. Government faces resource scarcity and therefore needs to create fiscal space to set up such a reform. This paper evaluates the economy-wide impact of the CSG on the economy using a recursive bottom-up/top-down CGE-micro simulation approach. This allows the estimation of the potential effects of a 20% increase in the grant on households’ welfare, the economy, as well as on the fiscal constraint. This reform is evaluated under three fiscal scenarios to take into account the fiscal stress the country is currently experiencing. We find that the reform brings some positive impacts at the macro level, and a decrease in poverty for the whole population as well as for children. The direct effect brought by the CSG increase represents the largest contribution to poverty reduction, but the indirect (general equilibrium) effects globally reduce the positive poverty effects engendered by the CSG. Some interesting heterogeneous effects are also found, with the proposed reform being progressive and the richest percentiles showing a (small) deterioration due to the decrease in wage revenues. However, the overall poverty and inequality effects are small and unlikely to be robust. The paper’s results can assist South Africa, and indeed other African countries, calling for increased coverage of grants as well as exploring universal coverage. Further, the use of the integrated macro-micro simulation methodology is a major contribution of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • We explore households’ vulnerability from trade in Vietnam under Doi Moi. • We propose an extended version of Ligon and Schechter’s (2003) VEU measure. • We also propose an empirical application of it by using VHLSS panel data 2002–06. • We show that heterogeneity in trade exposure matters for household vulnerability. • This work deepens our knowledge on the subtle links between trade openness and vulnerability. Abstract This paper assesses vulnerability from trade in Vietnam by presenting an extended version of Ligon and Schechter’s (2003) Vulnerability as low Expected Utility (VEU) measure. It uses the Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys (VHLSS) panel data covering the period 2002–06. The empirical results show that risk-induced vulnerability and heterogeneity in trade exposure matter in determining household overall vulnerability and that this is not linked to the actual manifestation of shocks. Although it does not represent, by any means, an argument against free trade, this work is relevant for policymaking since it contributes to deepen our knowledge on the subtle links between trade openness and vulnerability and informs us about suitable instruments to accompany it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • The paper presents a new index of structural modernisation. • The index combines two dimensions: structural change and technological catch-up. • The index is calculated for 114 countries over a long period from 1960 to 2014. • The paper elaborates a method for identifying development traps. • Countries with good performance on the index are the countries that have succeeded in escaping development traps. Abstract This paper explores the relationship between trajectories of structural modernisation and the ability of countries to escape poverty and middle-income traps. The analysis is based on a newly created index of structural modernisation. For each country, the index calculates the productivity gap with respect to the world frontier in activities that typically represent the modern sector of the economy, and weights this relative productivity by the employment share of those activities in the total labour force. The index is calculated for 114 countries from 1960 to 2014. A country is defined as trapped if it takes longer than a benchmark period to move from one income category to another. The analysis shows that expansion of the size of the modern sector without a process of absorption of technology for reducing the technology gap is not enough to ensure steady growth. Inversely, reducing the technology gap in just few sectors will produce an enclave economy that is doomed to stagnate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), economies will experience an increase in mortality, reduced productivity for labor and the livestock sector, and increased health care costs. This paper assesses the potential global poverty impacts of AMR using a unique macro-micro framework. To estimate poverty effects of AMR, price, wage, and employment results from a dynamic, multi-country, multi-sector computable general equilibrium CGE model are used in a microsimulation model that integrates household surveys from 104 countries. The analysis in this paper advances other studies of AMR in two ways: (1) it links macro results to a microsimulation model to provide insight on poverty impacts for the world economy and countries of different income levels; and (2) it uses a global multi-sector model, rather than an aggregate global model, to generate macroeconomic results with structural details for capturing the economy-wide impact within countries and the spread across countries via trade flows. Relative to a world without AMR, the progression of antimicrobial resistance is expected to make it more difficult to eliminate extreme poverty, potentially adding 24.1 million people to become extremely poor, of whom 18.7 million live in low-income countries. The expected losses during 2015–50 may sum to $85 trillion in gross domestic product and $23 trillion in global exports (in present value). By 2050, the global gross domestic product could deviate negatively by 3.8 percent from the baseline (in the worst-case scenario considered). Because it is a global public bad, the optimal policy response will require global cooperation. The poverty outcomes induced by AMR in all country groups will deteriorate with short-sighted isolationist policies. Moreover, assistance from high-income countries to improve the economic resiliency of lower-income countries will also benefit the higher-income countries and world economy in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vietnam’s urban population is growing rapidly: by 2020 45% of Vietnamese are forecasted to be residing in cities. Even though poverty today remains predominantly a rural phenomenon, there is a need to better understand the landscape of poverty in urban areas. Drawing on small-area estimation methods we estimate welfare outcomes at the level of individual towns and cities in Vietnam, including even the smallest towns. Such estimates could not be produced using national sample surveys alone. Results show an inverse relationship between poverty and city size in Vietnam, with the urban poor being disproportionately concentrated in small towns and cities. This relationship is robust to the location of the poverty line as well as to alternative city-size definitions. Interestingly, our evidence of a clear gradient between absolute poverty and city size is not replicated for subjective welfare, measured by self-reported food sufficiency. The absolute poverty-city size gradient does, however, accord with the observation of striking variation in service availability across cities of different size in Vietnam. Small town residents are typically confronted with far lower per-capita availability of basic services than are large city dwellers. The results suggest that policymakers concerned to tackle urban poverty in Vietnam should not neglect attending to smaller towns. Addressing inequalities in access to key basic services across the entire urban population may represent one means to this end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the longitudinal panel surveys of 1996, 2004, and 2011, this paper examines the dynamics of foreign remittances and their impact on poverty in Nepal. The intent is to explore how foreign remittances have evolved and impacted poverty and economic well-being of households. Focusing on a consistent set of households across the three survey rounds in a balanced panel format helps examine the effect of foreign remittances with appropriate controls. Results from methodologically consistent, random-effects regressions that correct for potential attrition and heterogeneity bias support significant poverty-reducing and, more accurately, economic well-being-enhancing effects of foreign remittances especially when originating in countries other than India. This and other findings are valuable to the assessment of policies on utilizing foreign labor migration and remittances as a vehicle to reduce poverty in Nepal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wave of upbeat stories on the developing world’s emerging middle class has reinvigorated a debate on how social class in general and the middle class in particular ought to be defined and measured. In the economics literature, most scholars agree that being middle class entails being free from poverty, which means being able to afford the basic things in life – not only today, but also tomorrow. In consequence, there is an increasing tendency to define the middle class based on a lack of vulnerability to poverty. In this paper, we strengthen and expand on these existing approaches in three ways: First, we incorporate the differentiation between the middle class and a (non-poor) vulnerable group into a broader social-stratification schema that additionally differentiates between transient and chronic poverty. Second, in estimating the risk of poverty, we employ a multivariate regression model that explicitly allows for possible feedback effects from past poverty experiences and accounts for the potential endogeneity of initial conditions, unobserved heterogeneity, and non-random panel attrition – four factors insufficiently addressed in existing studies. Third, we highlight the value of paying attention to these conceptual and modelling issues by showing that class divisions based on monetary thresholds inadequately capture a household’s chances of upward and downward mobility. We then apply our conceptual framework to the South African case. We find that only one in four South Africans can be considered stably middle class or elite. Access to stable labor market income is a key determinant of achieving economic stability. A lack of jobs as well as the prevalence of precarious forms of work drive high levels of vulnerability, which in turn constrains the development of an emergent middle class – not only in South Africa but potentially also in other parts of the developing world that face similar labor market challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most existing multidimensional poverty measures, such as the global-MPI and the MPI-LA, use the household as the unit of analysis, which means that the multidimensional poverty condition of the household is equated with the multidimensional poverty condition of all its members; accordingly, these measures ignore the intra-household inequalities and are gender-insensitive. Gender equality is, however, at the center of the sustainable development, as emphasized by Goal 5 of the SDGs; therefore, individual-based measures are indispensable to track progress in reaching this Goal. We contribute to the literature on multidimensional poverty and gender inequality by proposing an individual-based multidimensional poverty measure for Nicaragua and estimate the gender gaps in the three I’s of multidimensional poverty (incidence, intensity, and inequality). Overall, we find that in Nicaragua, the gender gaps in multidimensional poverty are lower than 5%, and poverty does not seem to be feminized. However, the inequality among the multidimensionally poor is clearly feminized, especially among adults, and women are living in very intense poverty when compared to men. We also find that adding a dimension (employment, domestic work, and social protection) under which women face higher deprivation into the analysis leads to larger estimates of the incidence, intensity, and inequality of women’s poverty. Finally, we find evidence that supports earlier studies that challenge the notion that female-headed households are worse off than those led by males in terms of poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This paper examines the implications of productivity improvements in agriculture, industry, and services for global poverty. We find that, in poor countries, increases in agricultural productivity generally have a larger poverty-reduction effect than increases in industry or services. This differential declines as average incomes rise, partly because agriculture becomes smaller as a share of the economy, and partly because agricultural productivity growth becomes less effective in reducing poverty. The source of the poverty-reduction benefits from agricultural productivity growth changes as innovations are more widely adopted—moving from increases in producer returns to reductions in consumer prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Africa’s development debate is often cast as “agriculture versus non-agriculture”, with agriculture’s proponents arguing that agricultural growth is more effective at reducing poverty. This “dual economy” perspective overlooks the heterogeneity within and synergies between these two broad sectors. Recent studies decompose agriculture into subsectors and find that agricultural growth led by smallholder farmers is even more effective at reducing poverty than larger-scale estate farms. In contrast, few studies estimate subsectoral growth–poverty linkages for non-agriculture. Yet we strongly expect, for example, that growth led by informal traders or foreign-owned mining companies will have quite different implications for poverty reduction. Different perspectives on what constitutes “non-agriculture” might therefore explain divergent views on its relative importance for poverty reduction. To address this gap in our understanding, we estimate sectoral poverty–growth elasticities using economy-wide models for five African countries. While our estimated elasticities are higher for agriculture than for non-agriculture as a whole, the extent to which this is true varies considerably across nonagricultural subsectors (and across countries). We find that the poverty–growth elasticities for trade and transport services and manufacturing, especially agro-processing, are often close to, and sometimes exceed, agriculture’s. This means that growth led by these nonagricultural subsectors might be as effective as agriculture at reaching the poor. This confirms the need for a more nuanced treatment of non-agriculture in Africa’s policy debate, and may explain conflicting perspectives on agriculture’s role vis-à-vis non-agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early 2000s, Burkina Faso launched several legal reforms aimed at increasing gold production. This resulted in a gold mining boom, making gold the main export product and the main source of economic growth of the country. We hypothesize that gold extraction improved population living standards. This paper investigates how the gold boom in Burkina Faso which began in 2007 has affected socioeconomic outcomes. We use a simple theoretical model to motivate the testing of several hypotheses regarding these impacts. Employing a difference-in-differences strategy as well as panel data models, we estimate the impacts using data from household surveys undertaken in 2003 and 2009 and administrative data. Consistent with our model, the results suggest that areas hosting gold extraction have better average living standards in terms of headcount ratios, poverty gaps and household expenditures than do areas without gold. However, the gold boom is also shown to have potentially increased local inequality and child labor in areas with these income gains. These results demonstrate the importance of proactive government policy in mitigating negative welfare impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It remains a challenge for agricultural research-for-development (AR4D) institutions to demonstrate to donors which technologies contribute significantly to poverty reduction due to a multitude of impact pathways. We attempt to overcome this challenge by utilizing the potential outcomes framework and quantile treatment effects analytical approaches applied on panel household data collected from Central Africa. Our findings show that adoption of AR4D technologies reduced the probability of being poor by 13 percentage points. A large share of this poverty reduction is causally attributable to adoption of improved crop varieties (32%) followed by adoption of post-harvest technologies (28%) and crop and natural resource management (26%), with the rest 14% attributable to unidentified and/or unmeasured intermediate outcomes or factors. The findings further indicate that relatively poor farm households benefit from adopting improved crop varieties more than the relatively better-off households. Correspondingly, the relatively better off households benefit from adopting post-harvest technologies enhancing crop commercialization much more than the relatively poor households. The findings reveal interesting policy implications for successful targeting of agricultural interventions aimed at reducing rural poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rights-based approach to development targets progress towards the realization of 30 articles set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In current practice, progress is frequently measured using the multidimensional poverty index. While elegant and useful, the multidimensional poverty index is inconsistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights principles of indivisibility, inalienability, and equality. We argue that a first-order dominance (FOD) methodology maintains basic consistency with these principles. Specifically, FOD comparisons are independent of any applied weighting schemes and hence are free from assumptions regarding substitutability between included welfare indicators (indivisibility). FOD cannot be established when welfare in any indicator is deteriorating, no matter how great the advancement is in other indicators (inalienability). Finally, FOD requires that domination occurs throughout the population (equality), implying that welfare gains among better-off groups never offset welfare losses among worse-off groups. We discuss and compare the properties of the multidimensional poverty index and first-order dominance approach and apply both measures to 26 African countries using data near 2002 and 2012. Results across the two measures are broadly similar but not the same. For example, while the multidimensional poverty index suggests that all countries are advancing, FOD indicates that 14 countries experience broad-based progress, two countries show more moderate likelihoods of progress, and the remaining 10 countries neither improve nor deteriorate in terms of attainment of rights for the dimensions considered. We conclude that the multidimensional poverty index and first-order dominance approaches are useful complements that should be employed in tandem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The link between LID and farmer diversity is unclear, affecting its potential to reduce smallholder poverty. • Diverse perspectives surround the LID's potential effectiveness in addressing sustainability. • The LID may have unintended social and environmental impacts if not integrated with other governance measures in Ghana. Policy responses to balance the trade-offs between nature conservation and socioeconomic development have recently come to the fore in Ghana – the world's second largest producer of cocoa. In 2019, the Government of Ghana introduced the Living Income Differential (LID), which requires buyers to pay an additional US$400 per ton of cocoa on top of the floor price. With low farmer incomes identified as a critical driver of multiple sustainability issues in Ghana's cocoa sector, this differential is meant to be directly transferred to cocoa farmers in response to the persistent challenge of poverty in cocoa farming communities. Using the Q methodology, we engaged over 50 stakeholders from various levels (international policy experts, cocoa sector stakeholders in Ghana, and cocoa farmers) to understand how the LID is perceived, including its potential to transform the rural poverty complex embedded in Ghana's cocoa supply chain. While the LID is lauded for increasing producer price across the board, our findings indicate that the lack of regard for farmer diversity (i.e., tenure rights, sharecroppers, and caretakers), farm size, and land management strategies (agroforestry versus clearing forest to establish farms) risks undermining the ability of this pricing mechanism to reduce farmer poverty. Further, the LID is siloed from on-going sustainability governance efforts in the sector, such as zero deforestation cocoa. If the LID is delivered to farmers across the board without any quid pro quo for how cocoa is produced, the policy's unintended consequences may include increasing deforestation in the short term, while lowering the world market price of cocoa in the long term as cocoa supply increases. We conclude with policy implications on why different perspectives matter in managing sustainability trade-offs in deforestation frontiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Results indicate a positive effect of mobile money on household resilience metric. • A 10 km drop in the distance user-agent increases resilience by a percentage point. • Study finds that mobile money users are more likely to withstand severe shocks. • Findings establish new evidence on the long-run effect of digital payments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Eliminating intrastate conflict in 2022 would lift 148.2 million (range 50.7 - 186.6) from extreme poverty by 2030. • Eliminating intrastate conflict in 2022 would lift 164.9 million (range: 4.4 to 376.5) from extreme poverty by 2050. • The economic cost of intrastate conflict from 2022 forward is $28.1 trillion by 2030 and $292.4 trillion by 2050. • Conflict-attributable poor are concentrated in 10 countries representing 87.3% of conflict-attributable poor in 2030. • Eliminating civil war does not eliminate extreme poverty by 2030 (SDG1) in isolation of other interventions. Intrastate conflict generally undermines human development but its effect on global poverty across different income thresholds remains poorly understood. This paper analyzes how many people will live in poverty due to intrastate civil conflict in 2030, 2050, and 2070 using the International Futures model and shared socioeconomic pathways, forecasting 12 scenarios for 179 countries. A baseline conflict scenario leads to an additional 148.2 million (range: 50.7 to 186.0 million) people living in extreme poverty (<$1.90 per day) due to conflict by 2030 compared with a scenario where conflict is eliminated starting in 2022. These conflict-attributable poor represent 20.1% of the population in extreme poverty at that time, with the majority living in South Asia followed by Africa. By 2050 the population living in conflict-attributable poverty increases to 164.9 million (range: 4.4 to 376.5 million), representing 32.7% of the total extremely poor population at that time with the majority living in Africa. While future conflict will be responsible for hundreds of millions of people living in poverty, its elimination is not a panacea for achieving development targets: even in a scenario with no intrastate conflict from 2022 to 2030 the population living in extreme poverty is projected to be 6.9%, well above the target threshold of 3% for achieving the first Sustainable Development Goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]