Living standards : dynamics and comparisons : an analytical framework for emerging economies

This thesis implements parametric and semiparametric techniques at different levels of analysis to unpack novel empirical evidence on long-run trends in the living standards of the Mexican population, while providing insights for granular policy intervention and offering an analytical framework for similar analyses in other emerging economies. By exploiting concepts, measures, and methods from the literature on development economics, labour economics, and economic growth, the analysis starts by exploring how the initial levels of income-based poverty and inequality across geographic units shape their development pathways. Then, it focuses on households to test an alternative method to identify chronic poverty based on cross-sectional data over the long run. Finally, it quantifies the contribution of households' characteristics to the observed between-region differences in living standards once such characteristics have been isolated from external factors and geographic capital.