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Many refugee and host populations are food insecure and poor. In Syria, the UNICEF screened 2.3 million children and pregnant and lactating women for acute malnutrition. In Jordan, approximately half of the refugee households have reported reducing the quantity and quality of food and skipping meals. In Lebanon, only 7 percent of refugees are living with acceptable levels of food security. This report shows that frontier agriculture, which comprises climate-smart and water saving agriculture technologies, such as hydroponics, can contribute to improve well-being, including nutritional status for farmers and groups of people that are less integrated into the labor market. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), this includes women, youth, and those who are forcibly displaced. Frontier agriculture can leverage scarce resources, such as water and arable land, and promote inclusive economic activities that increase access to nutritious food, improve livelihoods, create jobs, promote entrepreneurship, enhance skills, and build social cohesion. It can also assist with building communities and help recover from the loss of assets and from trauma of fleeing from conflicts. There is an urgency to engage with and support refugee livelihoods. Previous experiences suggest that small-scale hydroponic projects targeting vulnerable populations can be implemented rather quickly and produce meaningful results within a short timeframe.

This paper makes an empirical contribution in unraveling the argument that immigration is either the sole or even the most important factor behind the U.S. poverty. While this argument is understandable, the blame is misplaced. Using data from the Current Population Survey, we show that between 1994 and 2008 the national poverty rate of immigrants fell three times faster than that of natives (5.4 compared to 1.8 percentage points). The poverty rate of recent immigrants (those in the United States for less than 10 years) fell even faster at almost six times faster than that of natives (10.7 compared to 1.8 percentage points). The empirical analysis of this paper shows that the odds of experiencing poverty for both natives and immigrants depend on micro factors such as individual characteristics and macro factors such as business cycle in the U.S. economy.

Growth economists still face challenges and limitations to incorporate institutions into the standard growth framework. This article develops a simple augmented Solow growth model that accounts for the interactions between institutions and factor-productivity and examine the impacts of the quality of institutions on levels and growth rates of output. The institutions augmented growth model shows that differences in the quality of institutions preclude convergence and determine both the level and the growth rate of output per worker. The model also shows that poor institutions induce poverty traps. Furthermore, the income gap between rich and poor countries will increase if poor countries’ institutions do not improve relative to their rich counterpart.

This paper uses microdata from the Current Population Survey combined with data from the U.S. International Trade Commission and Bureau of Economic Analysis to evaluate the impacts of international trade (imports penetration and exports intensiveness) on wages with a special focus on the returns to education. Consistent with the literature, our empirical analysis provides evidence that the wage rates of similarly skilled workers differ across net-exporting, net-importing and nontradable industries. Our results add to the literature by showing that the wage gap usually found across importing and exporting industries vanishes for highly-skilled workers (workers with college degree and beyond) when we control for the cross-effect between international trade and education, but the wage gap due to international trade still persists for low-skilled workers. This finding supports the view that education serves as an equalizer and counterbalances the adverse impact from imports-penetration on wages of highly-skilled workers

Using seven alternative measures of the institutions, this study examines the impacts of the quality of institutions on poverty rates in developing countries. The estimates obtained using the instrumental variable method (2SLS) show that the quality of institutions is negatively related with poverty rates and explain a significant portion of the variation in poverty rates across countries. More precisely, the empirical results suggest that an economy with a robust system to control corruption, market-friendly policies, a working judiciary system, and in which people have freedom to exercise their citizenship will create the necessary conditions to promote economic development and reduce poverty. The results suggest that pro-poor policies aimed at reducing poverty should first consider improving the quality of institutions in developing countries as a pre-requisite for economic development and poverty eradication.

This paper contributes to the literature on institutions and economic growth by conducting an empirical examination on the links between innovation and institutions. Using cross-country data and the instrumental variable method, this study finds that institutional arrangements explain much of the variation on patent production across countries. We find evidence that control of corruption, market-friendly policies, protection of property rights and a more effective judiciary system boost an economy’s rate of innovation. Most of the previous literature on institutional and economic performance finds a positive association between institutions and levels of income and between institutions and the transitional growth rates of per capita income; however an unambiguous empirical association between institutions and the steady state growth has not yet been established. Based on the theoretical model developed by Tebaldi and Elmslie (2006), which shows that the impacts of institutions on innovation spillover to the growth rate of GDP per capita, this paper shows evidence of a growth effect through innovation, i.e., institutions have a growth effect on income because institutional quality affects an economy’s rate of innovation, the engine of economic growth. Moreover, this study finds that controlling for institutional quality; geographic-related variables are not significant in explaining patent production. This paper also finds evidence to support the idea that in the long-run human capital accumulation is an important variable in shaping institutions.

O presente estudo contribui para um maior entendimento dos efeitos do crescimento econômico sobre a renda dos pobres através da avaliação de várias medidas de pobreza e da decomposição das fontes que contribuem para sua redução. Os resultados obtidos, usando dados da PNAD de 1995 a 2004, mostram que os componentes de crescimento da renda média e de sua distribuição são suficientes para explicar grande parte das variações nos níveis de pobreza entre os Estados brasileiros. Além do mais, este trabalho também indica que alguns resultados encontrados em Silveira Neto (2005) não se sustentam quando se levam em conta na análise medidas que capturam com maior precisão a intensidade da pobreza. Mais especificamente, utilizando o conceito de hiato de pobreza,evidencia-se que as políticas que impulsionaram o crescimento da renda na região Nordeste têm sido mais “própobres” que as das outras regiões do país nesse período. Isto, por outro lado, é uma evidência de que o crescimento econômico tem sido o principal instrumento de combate à pobreza no Nordeste. Portanto, uma das contribuições mais importantes desta pesquisa é mostrar que os resultados da avaliação do impacto do crescimento econômico na renda dos mais pobres é bastante sensível aos critérios utilizados na sua medição.

Analyses of municipal GDP growth in Rio Grande do Norte in the Northeast of Brazil during 1970-96 reveal that the cross-section dispersion of per capita income increased over time. Although the analysis indicates some spatial dependence in income, it is small and has a downward trend, indicating that the growth path is only weakly determined by geographical links in Rio Grande do Norte. Moreover, dynamic analyses based on the Markov chain transition matrix show that the probability of a municipality moving from a poor income class to a rich class is very small and vice-versa. Municipalities located in the middle-income class have high mobility, but there is no strong evidence indicating direction. Public policy should include assisting the rural families by providing them education and training that increases their opportunities for employment. There should also be policies to assist poor and unskilled migrants to integrate fully into the modern economy in the urban areas through skill development training and education.