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Despite repeated emphasis on the links between the natural environment and human well-being and the disproportionate and direct dependence of the rural poor on natural resources, these links have not been well addressed in poverty assessments. Common poverty profiles neither reflect the contribution of nature to well-being nor the multiple values and meanings that people ascribe to nature. Building on a conceptual grounding for including environmental components in well-being measures, our work aimed to determine for which components it is legitimate to do so according to the people whose well-being is measured. We developed a focus group discussion protocol to elicit perceptions of environment-well-being relationships in rural settings in Rwanda and Malawi. The protocol included a well-being free-listing exercise, a matching exercise linking the listed items to predefined well-being dimensions, and a discussion of environment-well-being connections. We found that severe environmental degradation, hazards, and conflicts over access to land and forests in these diverse rural areas are deeply and directly linked to well-being. Environmental changes such as flooding or extended drought led to losses of income, crops, and assets, as well as prolonged periods of psychological stress, constrained freedom of choice, and in extreme cases, death. Our results suggest that some environmental components are constituent to well-being. We emphasise the importance of validating the precise environmental components that are considered relevant to well-being in different contexts. Extending poverty measurement with relevant environmental components can help in targeting action towards reducing poverty in a more legitimate, context-specific way.

We describe a methodology for small area estimation of counts that assumes an area-level version of a nonparametric generalized linear mixed model with a mean structure defined using spatial splines. The proposed method represents an alternative to other small area estimation methods based on area level spatial models that are designed for both spatially stationary and spatially non-stationary populations. We develop an estimator for the mean squared error of the proposed small area predictor as well as an approach for testing for the presence of spatial structure in the data and evaluate both the proposed small area predictor and its mean squared error estimator via simulations studies. Our empirical results show that when data are spatially non-stationary the proposed small area predictor outperforms other area level estimators in common use and that the proposed mean squared error estimator tracks the actual mean squared error reasonably well, with confidence intervals based on it achieving close to nominal coverage. An application to poverty estimation using household consumer expenditure survey data from 2011–12 collected by the national sample survey office of India is presented.

Using a global computable general equilibrium model, the paper analyzes the potential effects of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) on the Philippine economy. The analysis involves an 80-percent reduction in tariffs and 10 percent in nontariff barriers within RCEP member-countries over a 10-year period. The results indicate trade creation within RCEP. Exports of RCEP to nonmembers decline. Within RCEP, the improvement in exports of the six non-ASEAN members is relatively higher than the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members. Viet Nam benefits the most among ASEAN members. Exports of the rest of ASEAN increase as well, including the Philippines. The entry of cheaper rice in the Philippines benefits lower income households. The entry of cheaper textiles benefits the garments industry. On the whole, Philippine gross domestic product improves by 3 percent and welfare by USD 2 billion. Philippine poverty declines from 24.9 percent to 23.3 percent.

This paper quantifies the contributions to poverty reduction observed in Sri Lanka between 2002 and 2012/13. The methods adopted for the analysis generate entire counterfactual distributions to account for the contributions of demographics, labor, and non-labor incomes in explaining poverty reduction. The findings show that the most important contributor to poverty reduction was growth in labor income, stemming from an increase in the returns to salaried nonfarm workers and higher returns to self-employed farm workers. Although some of this increase in earnings may point to improvements in productivity, defined as higher units of output per worker, some of it may simply reflect increases in food and commodity prices, which have increased the marginal revenue product of labor. To the extent that there have been no increases in the volumes being produced, the observed changes in poverty are vulnerable to reversals if commodity prices were to decline significantly. Finally, although private transfers (domestic and foreign) helped to reduce poverty over the period, public transfers were not as effective. In particular, the reduction in the real value of transfers of the Samurdhi program during 2002 to 2012/13 slowed down poverty reduction.

Afghanistan’s per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at an average annual rate of 6.9 percent during that period. In contrast, in 2007-08, 36 percent of Afghans were poor, and four years later, still, more than one in three Afghans did not have the buying power to satisfy their basic food and non-food needs. Economic growth in Afghanistan, therefore, is not in and of itself enough to reduce poverty. To achieve poverty reduction, economic growth needs to be far more inclusive for everyone, regardless of their circumstances. While economic growth is necessary to reduce poverty, the poor must actually benefit from that growth. Poverty reduction hinges on the ability of the poorest to earn a good living; accumulate, control, and protect assets; and access quality services and opportunities. For Afghanistan, this means: strengthening agriculture, investing in human development, managing and mitigating risk.

This paper presents trends in monetary and nonmonetary dimensions of wellbeing in Ethiopia using data from the Household Consumption and Expenditure and Welfare Monitoring surveys implemented in 2000, 2005, and 2011. The paper provides evidence on changes in overlapping deprivations using a non-index approach to multidimensional poverty. It assesses the performance of various dimensions in education, health, and living standards, taking one indicator at a time. It then examines the overlap between different dimensions of poverty and examines how this has changed over time in Ethiopia and across rural and urban areas. It highlights that although Ethiopia’s multidimensional poverty index is very high, there have been improvements in overlapping deprivations and, as a result, the number of individuals deprived in multiple dimensions has fallen.

Over the last decade, the Kyrgyz Republic experienced volatile but positive economic growth. Since the early 2000s, the share of working age population has been growing robustly and foreign labor markets have been an important source of employment. The Kyrgyz Republic has achieved large reductions in poverty over the past decade, but in recent years progress has diminished. During 2003-2012, the Kyrgyz Republic saw significant convergence between urban and rural poverty rates. Poverty reduction during 2003-2013 was driven mostly by growth rather than redistribution.

With the recent release of the 2011 purchasing power parity (PPP) data from the International Comparison Program (ICP), analysts and institutions are confronted with the question of whether and how to use them for global poverty estimation. The previous round of PPP data from 2005 led to a large increase in the estimated number of poor in the world. The 2011 price data suggest that developing countries’ incomes in PPP-adjusted dollars are significantly higher than indicated by the 2005 PPP data. This has created the anticipation that the new PPP data will decrease significantly the count of poor people in the world. This paper presents evidence that if the global poverty line is updated with the 2011 PPP data based on the same set of national poverty lines that define the $1.25 line in 2005 PPPs, and if the 2011 PPP conversion factors are used without adjustments to selected countries, the 2011 poverty rate is within half a percentage point of the current global estimate based on 2005 PPPs. The analysis also indicates that the goal of ‘ending’ extreme poverty by 2030 continues to be an ambitious one.

Indicators of private or household consumption are the basic indicators of the conditions in the national economy and the basic indicators of economic deprivation. This paper will discuss the data on household consumption available in the official statistics in Croatia. Also, it will discuss the data on the structure of personal consumption from which undoubtedly is obvious that in times of crisis majority of population is oriented to satisfaction of basic needs. On the other hand, retail is an industry that responds to the economic crisis faster than other industries because it is directly linked to personal consumption. Thus, due to the reduced consumption in households, indicators of business activity in the retail trade shows a negative effect not only through the reduction of generated income, but also through changed way of behavior of the majority of consumers, which consequently leads to changes in the retail structure. Specifically, it is clearly visible that the sales formats with the lowest margins occupy an increasing share of the market. Therefore, in this paper change in the retail trade is analyzed as well.

Le tourisme et les secteurs des services sont devenus le domaine privilégié des politiques de développement avec le déclin du secteur agricole dans de nombreux pays en développement et les difficultés à développer un secteur industriel compétitif. Le tourisme est donc considéré comme un des moyens importants de lutte contre la pauvreté dans les pays en développement et en particulier dans les pays les moins avancés. Toutefois, il serait illusoire de croire que le tourisme peut contribuer significativement à réduire la pauvreté sans la poursuite de politiques spécifiques centrés sur cet objectif prioritaire. Tourism and services sectors have become the preferred area of development policies in a context of declining agricultural sector (in many developing countries) and the difficulties of developing a competitive industry. Tourism is considered an important means to fight against poverty in developing countries and in particular the least developed countries. However, it would be illusory to believe that tourism can contribute significantly to poverty reduction without further specific policies focus on this priority.

Deaton s analysis of the problems with poverty counts and suggestions for improvement, including issues needing further research, are based on two distinct stages in counting the poor. At the first or international stage, a world poverty line is set and used to derive comparable poverty lines for each country. At the second or domestic stage, the poverty lines are used to count the number of poor people in each country, and the others are added up over countries. He finds disquieting evidence about both stages of counting. The data for poverty counts in the second stage come from household surveys, whereas data on aggregate economic growth are from National Accounts Statistics (NAS). Deaton finds that in many countries there are large and growing disparities between survey data and national accounts so that there is no consistent empirical basis for conclusions about the extent to which growth reduces poverty. It is scandalous that even after nearly half a century of pursuing national and international programs for the eradication of mass poverty, the empirical foundations for assessing the success or failure of the programs and drawing lessons from them are so weak as to be deemed nonexistent. Abandoning them and focusing on national and subnational poverty analysis that goes beyond headcounts will be the sensible course to follow. The author focuses only on consumption-based poverty lines. The reason is the challenge of defining household income in a theoretically satisfactory manner and collecting data on income based on that definition through household surveys in any country (developed or developing). Deaton (1989) discusses the difficulties in meeting the challenge. Poverty counts based on income-based poverty lines are even more problematic than consumption-based ones.