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Fifty years after Feagin's pioneering 1972 study, we present a systematic review of the measurement of attributions for poverty and economic inequality. We conducted a search for articles published from 1972 to 2023 in APA PsycArticles, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, APA PsycInfo, PSYNDEX Literature with PSYNDEX Tests, and Google Scholar. We used the following English keywords: "poor", "poverty", "inequality", "attribution", and "attributions" and their equivalents in Spanish. Applying our inclusion and exclusion criteria led to a final sample of 74 articles. We report three main findings. First, the majority of studies classify attributions on the dimensions of individualistic vs. structural. Second, there is a clear tendency to measure attributions for domestic poverty without considering supranational factors or poverty as a global challenge. Third, studies focus almost exclusively on poverty rather than (economic) inequality. We identify potential for future development within the literature, namely, from a domestic to a global perspective, from locus to controllability, and from poverty to inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short paper argues that institutional trust should be considered as an additional factor influencing poverty at the macroeconomic level. By examining a sample of Latin American countries and analyzing annual data from 1995 to 2019 using panel data techniques such as cointegration analysis and panel fully modified least squares, this study estimates the long-term relationships between poverty, economic growth, inequality, and institutional trust. As hypothesized, the empirical evidence suggests that institutional trust also reduces poverty. These findings hold particular significance for Latin America, where inequality levels are relatively high, institutional trust is low, and poverty rates have only recently begun to decline. Therefore, to alleviate poverty, it is crucial to implement public policies that restore and enhance institutional trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to identify the measurement techniques for inequality and poverty. The Gini index and the Theil index as well as the Basic Human Needs indicator are objects of the study. Also, the study analyses the Quality of Life Index (QLI) and Health Care Index (HCI) and how they are applicable in different countries and regions worldwide alongside the standard of life measurement through the Purchasing Power Index (PPI). The paper identifies that it is necessary when looking at inequalities to apply more than one measure. Also, it is necessary to distinguish between inequality within a given country and inequality between countries, especially when they are located in different regions and at different stages of their economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Growth Incidence Curve (GIC), introduced in the poverty measurement literature by Ravallion and Chen (Econ. Lett. 78(1), 93–99, 2003), proved to be a valuable and widely used tool to analyze the impact of growth on poverty and its 'pro-poorness'. Beyond pro-poorness, however, the relationship between the shape of GICs and social welfare is ambiguous. If a declining GIC, together with a positive overall rate of growth, is unambiguously associated with a social welfare gain, such a shape is not the most common and the reciprocal is not necessarily true. This paper analyzes the social welfare properties of GICs, as well as their non-anonymous counterpart (NAGICs), which describe how income growth depends on the initial rank of individuals in the initial income distribution. NAGICs thus account not only for the change in the distribution of income but also for income mobility, and differ conceptually from their anonymous counterpart. However, their social welfare interpretation proves to be very similar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decades ASEAN countries have experienced rapid economic growth accompanied by a dramatic fall in poverty rates, but income inequality has not retreated. This research aims at identifying factors which could contribute to more equally distributed growth in ASEAN. To measure inclusive growth, we use a variable integrating per capita income growth and an equity index. A cross-country panel analysis of the impact of macro-structural factors on inclusive growth and its two components suggests that fiscal redistribution, female labour force participation, productivity growth, FDI inflows, digitalization, and savings significantly drive inclusive growth. A scenario analysis based on our econometric results suggests that the implementation of fiscal redistribution and labour market-oriented structural reforms could help significantly accelerate inclusive growth in ASEAN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author uses data from the Cambodia Socio-Economic Survey in 2014 to investigate the impact of remittances on poverty and inequality. Unlike other studies that use income to measure poverty, we employ monthly per capita consumption. We also consider remittances as a substitute income rather than an exogenous transfer. Therefore, imputing counterfactual expenditure in a scenario of no migration no remittances is necessary. To test for selection, a Heckman model is required under the null hypothesis that non-recipient households are randomly drawn from the population. Contrary to some previous studies, we find significant effect of selection bias and evidence that remittances reduce the poverty rate by 2 percent on the national level or 5 percent for recipient households. Furthermore, remittances decrease the poverty gap by 2.5 percent or 6.6 percent for a sub-sample of recipient households, but they also increase inequality by 1 percent, as measured by the GINI coefficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The multiple crises that Europe is facing have put at risk the fulfilment of the recovery and reconstruction objectives and the international commitments acquired for the present decade, based on the respect and guarantee of human rights, including the fight against poverty. In the collective imagination, the belief that poverty is a residual problem in a rich area such as the European Union is quite spread. Nothing could be further from the truth. Poverty rates, social exclusion and in- equality in Europe are high and persistent, which reveals multidimensional causes. The European political context and EU fundings are favouring the introduction of profound changes aimed at addressing, on one hand, the specific effects of the current crises and, on the other hand, pre-existing structural vulnerabilities. However, from European civil society we consider that a greater effort in the adoption of redistributive and social justice policies is required, to prevent the growth to intolerable levels of inequality, poverty and discrimination rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applied the macro-micro simulation model (i.e., what-if analysis) to investigate the impact of transport related to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on poverty and income inequality in Laos. We selected Laos as a case study of a developing country. We used the standard GTAP model with the GTAP database (version 10) for the macrosimulation, whereas we used the household model with the latest Lao household data from 2019 for the microsimulation. Our findings revealed that the output of the Lao economy was anticipated to increase by up to 0.3%, while the poverty rate was anticipated to decline from 17.0% to 15.7%. However, there would be winners and losers in industries and groups of households in different areas. In particular, rich households with a comparative socioeconomic advantage, such as in education, engagement in nonfarm business, and infrastructure access, would mostly gain benefits; consequently, this would lead to higher inequality in Laos. Therefore, the inequality index (i.e., the Gini coefficient) would increase from 41.2 to 60.1. After a simulation of BRI transport, we also found that some nonpoor households, which are mainly associated with farm activities and lower educational levels, would fall into poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The standard method of poverty estimation uses unadjusted per capita income or expenditure to calculate population below the poverty line. However, recent empirical advancements have validated this method to be essentially flawed in nature. It does not take into consideration nor allows for household composition and economies of scale. Empirical investigations have confirmed the facts that the measures of poverty and inequality are sensitive to various choices of equivalence scales. Therefore, standard measures provide mostly overestimated poverty and inequality estimates. Further, poverty measurement across groups or overtime is sensitive to different poverty lines and measures. Any alteration in these can reverse the ranking. The current research attempts to test adult equivalence and scale economies in Jammu and Kashmir region to validate whether poverty estimates are sensitive to these scales or not. It also employs stochastic dominance technique to check whether poverty reduction is robust through time over a wide range of poverty lines and measures. The paper does so by employing three waves of monthly consumption expenditure rounds conducted by National Sample Survey Organization. For sensitivity analysis, the paper estimates FGT, Gini and Atkinson indices. Despite being industrially backward and politically fragile, J&K has shown better economic indicators than most other Indian states. The findings of the current study validate lower poverty in the region and at the same time discover a growth in inequality over time. While a mixed result is derived for adult equivalence, the economies of scale highlight the fact that standard measures are overstated and welfare rank reversal ensues when household size and gender of household is tested for. Further, stochastic dominance results show that poverty reduction is only robust during 61st and 66th round, and not during 66th and 68th rounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goals of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and working towards a more equal distribution of incomes are part of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. Using data from 166 countries comprising 97.5% of the world's population, we simulate scenarios for global poverty from 2019 to 2030 under various assumptions about growth and inequality. We use different assumptions about growth incidence curves to model changes in inequality, and rely on a machine-learning algorithm called model-based recursive partitioning to model how growth in GDP is passed through to growth as observed in household surveys. When holding within-country inequality unchanged and letting GDP per capita grow according to World Bank forecasts and historically observed growth rates, our simulations suggest that the number of extreme poor (living on less than $1.90/day) will remain above 600 million in 2030, resulting in a global extreme poverty rate of 7.4%. If the Gini index in each country decreases by 1% per year, the global poverty rate could reduce to around 6.3% in 2030, equivalent to 89 million fewer people living in extreme poverty. Reducing each country's Gini index by 1% per year has a larger impact on global poverty than increasing each country's annual growth 1 percentage point above forecasts. We also study the impact of COVID-19 on poverty and find that the pandemic may have driven around 60 million people into extreme poverty in 2020. If the pandemic increased the Gini index by 2% in all countries, then more than 90 million may have been driven into extreme poverty in 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consequences of poverty and inequality for growth have long preoccupied academics and policy-makers. This paper revisits the inequality-growth and poverty-growth links. Using a panel of 158 countries between 1960 and 2010, we find that the correlation of growth with poverty is consistently negative: A 10 p.p. decrease in the headcount poverty rate is associated with a subsequent increase in per capita GDP between 0.5 and 1.2% per year. In contrast, the correlation of growth with inequality is empirically fragile—it can be positive or negative, depending on the empirical specification and econometric approach employed. However, the indirect effect of inequality on growth through its correlation with poverty is robustly negative. Closer inspection shows that these results are driven by the sample observations featuring high poverty rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Leave No One Behind principle is at the core of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development and acknowledges that poverty is multidimensional and should be examined at individual level. Notwithstanding this, most empirical studies use the household as the unit of analysis for multidimensional poverty measurement. However, estimation of poverty levels at household-level underestimates poverty levels of the society and does not capture intra-household inequalities. The objective of this study is two-fold: (1) developing a country-specific individual-level multidimensional poverty measure; and (2) providing estimates of multidimensional poverty for Botswana. This study contributes to the limited literature on individual-level multidimensional poverty measurement. Empirically, this study offers the first attempt to estimate a nationally relevant and context-specific multidimensional poverty index for Botswana using the individual as a unit of analysis. The results reveal that an estimated 46.2% of individuals are considered multidimensionally poor based on individual-level analysis. This figure is higher than the household-level estimate of 36.5%, which indicates that using the household as a unit of analysis leads to underestimating poverty levels in the society. The results show that on average, the multidimensionally poor are deprived in 47.4% of all indicators under consideration. This finding indicates that multidimensional poverty intensity is also a considerable concern in Botswana. These findings warrant policy interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethno-racial inequality in poverty is an enduring but misunderstood problem. Most prior research relies on the flawed official poverty measure, data with underreported income, and models omitting essential predictors. Using the Current Population Survey, we adjust for benefit underreporting and estimate levels and trends in both relative and Supplemental Poverty Measure poverty rates for ethno-racial groups relative to White individuals in the U.S. from 1993 to 2017. We then focus on the five most recent years (2013–2017) and decompose Black–White, Latino–White, and Asian–White poverty gaps. We expand prior decomposition analyses by better incorporating employment and geographic context and better measuring immigration. Our findings show ethno-racial inequalities in poverty declined from 1993 to 2017 but remained large. Our estimates of relative poverty reveal that millions more Black and Latino individuals are poor than with the official measure—even after adjusting for benefit underreporting. By 2013–2017, Black and Latino individuals remain about twice as likely to be poor as White individuals. By contrast, the evidence is mixed on Asian–White differences. Decomposition results show employment explains the largest share of the Black–White gap, whereas immigration matters most for the Latino–White and Asian–White gaps. Geographical context also explains a significant portion of each racial gap and is particularly central to Asian–White gaps. Compared to prior decompositions, which would explain roughly half of the Black–White gap in poverty, our models explain more than three quarters. Beyond the novel empirical description, this study encourages structural, political, and critical race theories of poverty over behavioral explanations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Can features extracted from high spatial resolution satellite imagery accurately estimate poverty and economic well-being? The present study investigates this question by extracting both object and texture features from satellite images of Sri Lanka. These features are used to estimate poverty rates and average expected log consumption taken from small-area estimates derived from census data, for 1,291 administrative units. Features extracted include the number and density of buildings, the prevalence of building shadows (proxying building height), the number of cars, length of roads, type of agriculture, roof material, and several texture and spectral features. A linear regression model explains between 49 and 61 percent of the variation in average expected log consumption, and between 37 and 62 percent for poverty rates. Estimates remain accurate throughout the consumption distribution, and when extrapolating predictions into adjacent areas, although performance falls when using fewer households to calculate estimates of poverty and welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As governments try to contain rising expenditure on retirement pensions by increasing eligibility ages, there are concerns that such reforms disproportionately affect poorer households. Using detailed longitudinal data, I examine this trade‐off in the context of an Australian reform that increased women's pension‐eligibility age from 60 to 65. While this reform significantly reduced government spending on women at affected ages, the negative effects on household incomes were concentrated among poorer households. These unequal impacts meant that the reform temporarily increased relative poverty rates among affected women by around four percentage points and inequality measures by 6% to 19%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews classic views on poverty for which Bulgarian scientific literature is extremely inexhaustible. A “Continuum of classical theories of poverty” has been composed through the author’s interpretation and systematization of theoretical views which are embedded in world scientific literature. Three approaches are highlighted – social Darwinism, egalitarianism and statistical-sociological approach. Poverty is studied on the basis of relatively independent, but also complementary aspects: economic, sociological and applied. Each of these aspects brings together both classical theories and modern concepts of understanding poverty as a phenomenon. Emphasis is placed on the causes, factors, measures and the need to eliminate poverty. The main indicators of poverty are presented: Lorentz curve, Gini coefficient, persons at risk of poverty and social exclusion, poverty line and the rate of persons living below the poverty line in Bulgaria. Inequalities in the distribution of income before and after social transfers are presented, as well as those who are categorized by statistics as poor – before and after social transfers. The analysis highlights Bulgaria’s unfavorable position compared to other European Union member states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using IRS-990 data from the National Center for Charitable Statistics, this study assesses differences in county expenditures on nonprofit human services, by level of county rurality, in American counties. It also examines the relationship between nonprofit human services expenditures and county-level poverty rates. The findings suggest that rural counties have a negative association with nonprofit human services expenditures as compared with urban counties after controlling for relevant covariates. There is intrarural heterogeneity: The most rural counties have the lowest rates of nonprofit human services expenditures and a negative association with nonprofit human services expenditures that persists after controlling for all covariates, whereas the most populous rural counties have relatively higher rates of expenditures. A negative association between county-level poverty and nonprofit human services expenditures is explained by the combination of county-level rurality and regional effects, underscoring the importance of policy attention to the underprovision of human services in rural counties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advances in poverty measurement have opened new opportunities for investigating differences in poverty among racial and ethnic groups. Some researchers have attributed differences in poverty to differences in group characteristics, such as marital status or educational attainment, whereas others have focused on labor market differences or to differential benefits from taxes and transfer payments. This paper brings together all of these approaches to investigate the history of Black–White poverty differentials for families with children from 1980 to 2014. We break the history of the Black–White poverty differential into three "eras": 1980 to 1992, when the racial differential was largely driven by the business cycle; 1992 to 2002, when the racial differential was reduced substantially; and 2002 to 2014, when the differential could have been strongly influenced by the Great Recession, but was not. For each era, we examine the extent to which the changes in the poverty differential were influenced by changes in tax and transfer payment policy and by changes in family demographic and labor market characteristics. We find that labor market changes and changes in tax credits and transfer payments have strongly influenced the differential, though racial differences in marital structure, family work effort, and heads' educational attainment also continue to play a role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the launch of Indonesia's decentralization reforms in 2001, the country has achieved significant progress in improving the welfare of its citizens-as seen from increasing income per capita and decreasing poverty levels. However, vertical inequality has increased, raising concerns whether inequality between different parts of the country has also grown. Using spatial econometric models with data covering the 2002-19 period, this paper examines whether there has been a convergence or divergence in income per capita, inequality and poverty across local government areas in Indonesia, The findings indicate that there has been a conditional convergence of these development outcomes across local government areas. This means that the levels of income per capita, inequality and poverty across the country's municipalities and regencies will converge, but the gaps will not be completely eliminated due to di#erences in their endowment factors. This conditional convergence occurs across municipalities and across regencies as well as across local government areas in Java and outside Java, but at different rates of convergence. This finding implies that Indonesia needs to maintain its decentralization policy and resist efforts to recentralize revenue sources and responsibilities. In addition, this should be complemented by efforts to assist areas with low income per capita, high inequality and high poverty rates to improve their endowment factors and institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the income distribution as a channel of transmission of the effects of economic growth on poverty reduction. For that purpose, we analyse data for the CESEE countries with a focus on the Macedonian economy. Since the 1990s, in the transition process to market economies, inequalities within countries in the CESEE region have risen the most. The income distribution achieved in the last decade is not sufficient to neutralise the high inequality created after 1990. The Macedonian economy shows improved income distribution in the last decade as well, which influences the level of poverty. Still, income inequality and the relative poverty rate are among the highest in the CESEE region. The study sheds light on the effects of the predistributive and redistributive factors on the level of inequality and poverty. We consider the extent to which different parts of the income distribution are affected by the process of average income growth. The main conclusion from the empirical analysis for the CESEE countries is that the sign of the growth rate of the average income of the population, in most cases, is an important predictor of the income growth rate of the quintile groups. Correlation results show that the sign of the growth rates of the average income of the population is the most important determinant for the sign of the growth rates of the average income of the quintile group for the quintiles nearest to the average income of the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intra-household inequalities have long been a source of concern for policy design, but there is very little evidence about their effects. The current practice of ignoring inequality within households could lead to an underestimation of both overall inequality and poverty levels, as well as to the misclassification of some individuals with regard to their poverty status. Using a novel survey for Senegal in which consumption data were collected at a disaggregated level, this paper quantifies these various effects. In total, two opposing effects, one on mean and one on inequality, compensate each other in terms of the overall poverty rate, but individual poverty statuses are affected. Intra-household consumption inequalities account for 14 percent of inequality in Senegal. This study has also uncovered the fact that household structure and organization are key correlates of intra-household inequality and individual risk of poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides first generation estimates of poverty and inequality rates for three countries in Francophone Africa – Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, and Gabon – in the aftermath of independence. Sources – a large collection of historical household budgets – are new, as is the method that allows to connect historical sources to modern household budget surveys, and to deliver nationally representative estimates. The second part of the paper identifies the trend of poverty and inequality in Côte d'Ivoire for the years 1965 to 2015: mean income growth failed to reduce poverty during the 15 years of economic boom post-independence (1965–1979) because of increasing inequality. Conversely, in the following period (1979–2015) poverty changes are mostly guided by the evolution of growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty lines are typically higher in richer countries, and lower in poorer ones, reflecting the relative nature of national assessments of who is considered poor. In many high-income countries, poverty lines are explicitly relative, set as a share of mean or median income. Despite systematic variation in how countries define poverty, global poverty counts are based on fixed-value lines. To reflect national assessments of poverty in a global headcount of poverty, this paper proposes a societal poverty line. The proposed societal poverty line is derived from 699 harmonized national poverty lines, has an intercept of $1 per day and a relative gradient of 50 percent of median national income or consumption. The societal poverty line is more closely aligned with national definitions of poverty than other proposed relative lines. By this relative measure, societal poverty has fallen steadily since 1990, but at a much slower pace than absolute extreme poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying the macro-economic determinants of poverty is a key concern for developing poverty reduction policies. Since young people and young migrants in particular are more exposed to poverty, establishing the factors that trigger poverty among these social categories has even more relevance. A preliminary analysis shows that significant differences exist between at-risk-of poverty or social exclusion rate of young migrants and young nationals across European countries. For a more thorough study of the reasons behind these differences in poverty rates between young migrants and young nationals, two panel data regression models are estimated on a cross-section of 23 countries over the period 2010 - 2018 (one model for young migrants, the other for young nationals). Results confirm the main theories in the specialty literature: unemployment and inequality (measured by the Gini index) are the main triggers of poverty or social exclusion both for young nationals and young migrants. However, the income is significant for reducing poverty only for young nationals, but not for the young migrants. This result reinforces the necessity of better integration policies for young migrants in richer Member States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines affluence and poverty interdependence across 185 countries and its evolution over 1969–2014. To estimate affluence and poverty interdependence and derive tail interdependences the tail copulae are applied to multivariate density function. The tail coefficients are estimated in the non‐parametric way as in Schmidt and Stadtmüller (2006). The estimates show, that poverty is less interdependent and continue to decrease, while affluence has asymptotically high global dependence, meaning a higher global dependence on and sensitivity to the well‐being of the affluent countries. The received results derive the pattern of the extreme interdependence and can help to identify poverty and affluence spill‐over across countries and regions and calculate the average sensitivity of a country to these phenomena on the global level and can potentially help in poverty reduction strategies within the Sustainable Development Goal by the United Nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares income distributions for the family types distinguished by the number of children. The primary contribution to the literature of the current paper was to provide evidence that between 2015 and 2016, when the child benefit Family 500+ program was implemented, there was a reduction in income inequality and poverty, especially for families with many children. The basis for the calculations was microdata from the Household Budget Survey conducted by Statistics Poland. It is the basic source of information on the revenues, expenditures, quantitative food consumption and other aspects of the living conditions of particular groups of the population. The data obtained from this survey allow for the analysis of different factors influencing income distribution and its inequality by means of selected income inequality measures: Gini index and the quintile and decile share ratios. To conduct poverty analysis, the head-count ratio, poverty gap and squared poverty gap indices were applied. The results of the analysis revealed noticeable changes in the income distribution of Polish households, which resulted in poverty reduction, especially for families with many children. In total, mean equivalent income increased by 127 PLN and poverty decreased by 1.2 percentage points. Approximately 160,000 households came out of poverty. The two-sample parametric tests for differences in means and proportions showed that in 2016, the means were significantly larger and poverty rates significantly smaller for all family types but the differences were larger for large families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to investigate the effect of public debt on some social development indicators with a sample including 17 developing and emerging countries in the Asia-Pacific region over the period of 1980-2018. The panel regression method is applied with both fixed-effects and randomeffects models. Our study finds that public debt has a negative impact on some main social development indicators of the economies. More specifically, public debt has a negative and significant effect on the growth rate of GDP per capita. Public debt also has a negative impact on domestic investment, however, the coefficients are not statistically significant. Besides, public debt has a positive and significant impact on the poverty rate. Although public debt has a negative impact on inequality, it seems that all income groups are poorer, so the reduction of inequality (denoted by the Gini index) is understandable. Finally, the panel Granger causal test points out that high rate of poverty seems to be a good reason to persuade governments to borrow more in the future. Following our result, policy makers need to be more careful when they use public debt as a common tool to support economic activities in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An opportunity to improve measurement and modelling of poverty in Africa arises from recent intra‐year panel surveys that observe household consumption in post‐planting and post‐harvest periods. Observing the same household twice lets an intra‐year correlation be estimated, which can be used to form a corrected estimate of annual consumption. The usual approach surveys consumption for just one short period, like a week or month, and extrapolates to an annual total. This may adequately estimate mean annual consumption for samples spread over a year but overstates dispersion. The resulting noise in consumption estimates inflates measures of poverty and inequality and creates misclassification errors that bias logit and probit models of poverty determinants. This study uses data from the 2012/2013 Nigeria General Household Survey panel to show effects on poverty measures of using annual estimates extrapolated from short‐period surveys. With the corrected extrapolation method that uses intra‐year correlations to adjust for inflated variances, Nigeria's poverty headcount rate falls by one half. Hence, much of the poverty measured in cross‐sectional surveys is transient poverty, for which different policy interventions are needed than for alleviating chronic poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined: (i) Kosovo's social policy's poverty and inequality outcomes in recent history, namely during Yugoslav self‐management socialism (1952–1989), the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) (1999–2008) and independence (2008 onwards), and (ii) the impact of local politics in the more recent trajectory of social policy. The study shows that the poverty rate after the war (1999) is significantly lower than it was during socialism, but that there is persistent high and deepening Gini inequality and social exclusion. Transfers and taxes of the residual‐liberal policy have reduced more pretransfer–pretax inequality, and especially poverty, compared with self‐management's insurance‐dominated socialism, but their effectiveness is declining due to the policy's underlying long‐term, pro‐market logic and its increasing particularism with respect to short‐term transfers. The article argues that the main local political cleavages have originated from self‐management socialism's extensive stratification. These cleavages matter in distributive conflicts, and they mattered also during the UNMIK period by easing the pathway for the unprecedented influence international organisations have had on policy formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Dilemas Contemporáneos: Educación, Política y Valores is the property of Dilemas Contemporaneos: Educacion, Politica y Valores and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Previous research that has quantified the dispersion of U.S. urban poverty has often focused on metropolitan areas rather than on central cities themselves. Detroit, for example, shares a region with wealthy suburbs and thus appears to have concentrated poverty, but the city itself is uniformly poor and has few pockets of wealth. This study calculates four measures of household poverty concentration across block groups inside 74 U.S. cities, finding poor "Rust Belt" cities such as Detroit to have "diffuse" poverty. We also isolate a group of low-poverty, high-concentration cities in the U.S. South and West, as well as outliers that include "Sunbelt" cities with more diffuse poverty than predicted. Regression analysis finds the poverty rate itself to explain most of the variation in poverty concentration, with ethnic composition and the share of service employment also playing a potential role. Calculating changes in tract level poverty distributions from 2010 to 2015, we find that the concentration of poverty has decreased overall and that growth in the share of Hispanic residents might help explain these decreases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using time series data for Portugal between 1973 and 2016, this paper examines to what extent, inward FDI contributes to income inequality and poverty in the long-run. It was found that increased flows of inward FDI are associated with a less unequal income distribution and lower poverty rates. The results further suggest that, in the Portuguese case there is mutual causality between inward FDI and poverty in the long run, i.e., FDI significantly reduces poverty, and lower levels of poverty lead to higher inward FDI flows. In the case of inequality, the evidence shows that FDI does not contribute to higher (or lower) income inequality. Instead, more unequal income distributions significantly and negatively impact on inward FDI in the long run. Finally, human capital emerged as a key determinant to mitigate income inequality and circumvent poverty, contributing, indirectly, to fostering additional FDI inflows. Such results call for integrated public policy interventions that emphasize social and institutional dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the effects of the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) on poverty, using micro-level household data from 17 villages in a poor area of China's Guizhou province. A four-wave panel dataset allows us to follow NCMS through its reforms. First-order impact assessments suggest NCMS helps reduce the poverty rate by up to 3 percentage points, and the poverty gap by up to 15 percentage points. It also reduces the contribution of health expenditures to inequality as measured by Gini coefficient. The benefits of NCMS in terms of poverty and inequality appear considerably larger after major reforms in 2009, which expanded benefits and coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the Supplemental Poverty Measure, state-level poverty rates range from a low of less than 10 percent in Iowa to a high of more than 20 percent in California. We seek to account for these differences using a theoretical framework proposed by Brady, Finnigan, and Hübgen (2017), which emphasizes the prevalence of poverty risk factors as well as poverty penalties associated with each risk factor. We estimate state-specific penalties and prevalences associated with single motherhood, low education, young households, and joblessness. We also consider state variation in the poverty risks associated with living in a black household and a Hispanic immigrant household. Brady et al. (2017) find that country-level differences in poverty rates are more closely tied to penalties than prevalences. Using data from the Current Population Survey, we find that the opposite is true for state-level differences in poverty rates. Although we find that state poverty differences are closely tied to the prevalence of high-risk populations, our results do not suggest that state-level antipoverty policy should be solely focused on changing "risky" behavior. Based on our findings, we conclude that state policies should take into account cost-of-living penalties as well as the state-specific relationship between poverty, prevalences, and penalties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the presumption that poorer people tend to work less, it is often claimed that standard measures of inequality and poverty are overestimates. The paper points to a number of reasons to question this claim. It is shown that, while the labor supplies of American adults have a positive income gradient, the heterogeneity in labor supplies generates considerable horizontal inequality. Using equivalent incomes to adjust for effort can reveal either higher or lower inequality depending on the measurement assumptions. With only a modest allowance for leisure as a basic need, the effort-adjusted poverty rate in terms of equivalent incomes rises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the dampening effect of rising inequality on growth effects on poverty rates using the U.S. county level data. According to the "growth elasticity" argument, rising inequality weakens the magnitudes of the growth effects on poverty reduction. The dampening effect is defined as the negative effect of rising inequality on the growth elasticity of poverty and is decomposed into the direct and the indirect dampening effects. Where the direct dampening effect is equal to the estimate of inequality elasticity of poverty. The indirect dampening effect is calculated as the difference between the estimate of a benchmark growth elasticity of poverty and the estimate of growth elasticity of poverty while allowing inequality to change. The benchmark growth elasticity of poverty is estimated from a model which assumes inequality as constant. This study analyzes data on poverty rates, real median household income and inequality from 731 counties of the United States. Data are compiled from two programs of the U.S. Census Bureau and converted into annualized percent changes. Unlike previous studies analyzing survey data from developing countries, U.S. county data are comparable across counties and more reliable. The dampening effects are estimated using the ordinary least square technique applied to five models of poverty. The study finds that income growth does alleviate poverty, but growing inequality directly and indirectly dampens the growth effects on poverty rates. Estimate of the total dampening effect of inequality indicates that the rising inequality is likely to lift 129,405 fewer people out of poverty annually. The growth effect on poverty rates is estimated to be weaker in counties with growing inequality than that in counties with declining and unchanged inequality, confirming the dampening effect of rising inequality. Estimates of the regional effects captured by regional dummy variables suggest that regional specific factors do also dampen growth effect on poverty rates. One reason for such dampening is likely to be tightened-budgetary conditions emanating from cuts in social safety net programs across the United States during 2006-10. Overall, the results from this study indicate that merely pro-growth policies are unlikely to ensure faster poverty reduction in the United States. The policy intervention must also focus on pro-poor growth strategies targeting the incomes of the lower quintiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We re-explore Abel-Smith and Townsend's landmark study of poverty in early post World War 2 Britain. They found a large increase in poverty between 1953-1954 and 1960, which was a period of relatively strong economic growth. Our re-examination is a first exploitation of the data extracted from the recent digitization of the Ministry of Labour's 'Enquiry into household expenditure' in 1953-1954. First we closely replicate their results. We find that Abel-Smith and Townsend's method generated a greater rise in poverty than other reasonable methods. Using contemporary standard poverty lines, we find that the relative poverty rate grew only a little at most, and the absolute poverty rate fell, between 1953-1954 and 1961, as might be expected in a period of rising real incomes and steady inequality. We also extend the poverty rate time series of Goodman and Webb back to 1953-1954. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Compared to the extensive literature on measurement of poverty, the question of how the poor are distributed regionally has received less attention. This paper fills the gap in the literature by providing a conceptual framework to measure inequality in the distribution of the poor. A poverty segregation curve is used to compare a region’s share of the poor population with its share in the overall population. A unique contribution of the paper is formulating a generalized version of the poverty segregation curve. Unlike the segregation curve, the generalized segregation curve also takes average poverty rates into account while ranking distributions. Thus the generalized segregation curve may rank a distribution with substantially lower poverty rates above a distribution with higher poverty rates, when differences between their segregation curves are relatively small. The segregation curves are used to analyze changes in the distribution of the poor in India since the economic reforms in the early 1990s. Poverty rates and shares among all states, territories, and districts in India are estimated using data from the National Sample Survey Organization in 1994, 2004, and 2010. In the decades following the reforms India witnessed high growth rates and declining poverty rates. Despite the reduction in poverty, our analysis is the first to reveal that there was a significant rise in segregation of the poor over time. Some states had disproportionately high share of the poor compared to their share in the total population. Within states, the extent of segregation was lower among some of the poorest states and higher in less poor states. The generalized segregation curves show that the substantial decline in poverty rates since the reforms was not adequate to compensate the rise in segregation of the poor. Increase in segregation was also evident when the poor are identified as those who lacked education, health, and access to basic services. Reducing the segregation of the poor is important if India is to attain regionally balanced economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a widespread policy interest in poverty estimates at both national and global level. There has been an explosion of poverty measurement in the last two decades enabled by the growing availability of household survey data. These measurements are used by policy-makers to assess progress towards national and global goals for inclusive growth and poverty reduction. But the evidence base rests on shaky foundations, and policy-makers may have undue confidence in poverty and inequality estimates. Many household surveys are poorly designed to measure monetary living standards and poverty in an era of rising affluence and urban transition. Some key problems in measuring food consumption, housing services and the cost of living are discussed here. Alternatives to monetary measurement, such as using questions on life satisfaction and happiness, also rest on shaky foundations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate suburbanization and neighborhood inequality among 14 immigrant groups using census tract data from the 2008–2012 American Community Survey. Immigrant neighborhood inequality is defined here as the degree to which immigrants reside in neighborhoods that are poorer than the neighborhoods in which native whites reside. Using city and suburb Gini coefficients which reflect the distributions of groups across neighborhoods with varying poverty rates, we find that the immigrant-white gap is attenuated in the suburbs. This finding applies to most of the nativity groups and remains after accounting for metropolitan context, the segregation of poverty, and group-specific segregation levels, poverty rates, and acculturation characteristics. Despite reduced neighborhood inequality in the suburbs, large group differences persist. A few immigrant groups achieve residential parity or better vis-à-vis suburban whites while others experience high levels of neighborhood inequality and receive marginal residential returns on suburban location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Czech Republic is home to one of the more equal societies in terms of household disposable income, and has the lowest level of relative poverty in Europe. This study shows that Czech market income is quite egalitarian, especially when pensions are included. It finds that the narrowly defined tax-benefit system (i.e., direct taxes and social benefits) does not actually change the poverty rate, and that indirect taxes increase it. It further provides the first estimates of the redistributive effectiveness and targeting of a number of social and tax policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The economic injustice of poverty continues to influence the discrimination and inequality of women rights across the nation, specifically African American women. The United States Census Bureau reports the current poverty rate of America is 15.9 percent. Of that percentage, the top ten states with the highest poverty rate included seven southern states. According to the 2013 American Community Survey, 48,810,868 people live below the current economic indicator of poverty; hence the need to confront the prejudices that plague the African American woman demographic. According to a study published in the Journal of Marriage and the Family about African American mothers in poverty deep Chicago neighborhoods, " ... households headed by never-married mothers experience more persistent poverty and longer spells of welfare receipt than do other types of motheronly households" (Franklin, Smith, McMiller, 1995). Even though the study is decades old, today's U.S. Census report, the federal minimum wage and U.S. poverty rate all support those findings. At this time, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Before taxes and other deductions, an African American woman head of household can earn $217.50 for a 30-hour work-week or $11,310 annually working for the federal minimum wage. This paper will look at the Top 10 States with the highest poverty rates as reported in the U.S. Census and analyze how African American women are living in poverty in America. More specifically, it will also review the economic conditions of African American women who reportedly struggle financially to sustain income in order to live in what is considered by the United States Census Bureau "sufficient" economic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The post-2015 development agenda requires improved concepts to define and measure different forms of poverty and inequality. Building on the experiences made with the Millennium Development Goals, this paper gives an overview of several possible approaches by discussing their strengths and weaknesses. National, international, relative and multidimensional concepts are considered. Arguing that the discussions on the post-2015 agenda offer an opportunity to introduce new global measurements of progress that complement gross domestic product-based approaches, the authors make the case for a simple yet comprehensive index as a headline indicator that could help to better inform poverty and inequality reduction policies in the post-2015 world. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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