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At the outset of China's reform period, the country had a far higher poverty rate than for Africa as a whole. Within five years that was no longer true. This paper tries to explain how China escaped from a situation in which extreme poverty persisted due to failed and unpopular policies. While acknowledging that Africa faces constraints that China did not, and that context matters, two lessons stand out. The first is the importance of productivity growth in smallholder agriculture, which will require both market-based incentives and public support. The second is the role played by strong leadership and a capable public administration at all levels of government.

Absolute Poverty --- Extreme Poverty --- Inequality --- National Poverty --- National Poverty Line --- Poor --- Poverty Line --- Poverty Rates --- Poverty Reduction --- Pro-Poor Growth --- Rural Development --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Smallholder Agriculture

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In many poor countries, the recent increases in prices of staple foods raise the real incomes of those selling food, many of whom are relatively poor, while hurting net food consumers, many of whom are also relatively poor. The impacts on poverty will certainly be very diverse, but the average impact on poverty depends upon the balance between these two effects, and can only be determined by looking at real-world data. Results using household data for ten observations on nine low-income countries show that the short-run impacts of higher staple food prices on poverty differ considerably by commodity and by country, but, that poverty increases are much more frequent, and larger, than poverty reductions. The recent large increases in food prices appear likely to raise overall poverty in low income countries substantially.

Food commodities --- Food consumers --- Food Prices --- Impact on poverty --- Income --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Markets and Market Access --- Poor --- Poor countries --- Poor households --- Poor people --- Poverty rates --- Poverty Reduction --- Rural Development --- Rural Poverty Reduction

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National poverty lines vary greatly across the world, from under USD 1 per person per day to over USD 40 (at 2005 purchasing power parity). What accounts for these huge differences, and can they be understood within a common global definition of poverty? For all except the poorest countries, the absolute, nutrition-based, poverty lines found in practice tend to behave more like relative lines, in that they are higher for richer countries. Prevailing methods of setting absolute lines allow ample scope for such relativity, even when nutritional norms are common across countries. Both macro data on poverty lines across the world and micro data on subjective perceptions of poverty are consistent with a weak form of relativity that combines absolute consumption needs with social-inclusion needs that are positive for the poorest but rise with a country's mean consumption. The strong form of relativism favored by some developed countries - whereby the line is set at a fixed proportion of the mean - emerges as the limiting case for very rich countries.

Absolute poverty --- Achieving Shared Growth --- Economic growth --- Household size --- Income --- Income distribution --- Income poverty --- Inequality --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- National poverty --- National poverty lines --- Nutrition --- Nutritional status --- Per capita consumption --- Poor --- Poverty Assessments --- Poverty comparisons --- Poverty line --- Poverty Lines --- Poverty measurement --- Poverty rates --- Poverty Reduction --- Regional Economic Development --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Targeting

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As the financial crisis has spread through the world, the lack of real-time data has made it difficult to track its impact in developing countries. This paper uses a micro-simulation approach to assess the poverty and distributional effects of the crisis in the Philippines. The authors find increases in both the level and the depth of aggregate poverty. Income shocks are relatively large in the middle part of the income distribution. They also find that characteristics of people who become poor because of the crisis are different from those of both chronically poor people and the general population. The findings can be useful for policy makers wishing to identify leading monitoring indicators to track the impact of macroeconomic shocks and to design policies that protect vulnerable groups.

Achieving Shared Growth --- Chronically poor --- Distributional effects --- Economic growth --- Economic Theory & Research --- Food price --- Impact on poverty --- Incidence of poverty --- Income --- Income distribution --- Income inequality --- Income poverty --- Inequality --- Labor Policies --- Macroeconomic shocks --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Poor --- Poor people --- Poverty rates --- Poverty Reduction --- Regional Economic Development --- Rural --- Rural poverty --- Rural poverty rate --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Social Protections and Labor --- Unemployment

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Alleviating poverty for the elderly requires a different approach from other age groups, and a minimum pension is likely to be the only viable option. This paper examines the impact on old age poverty and the fiscal cost of universal minimum old age pensions in 18 Latin American countries using recent household survey data. First the authors measure old age poverty rates for these countries. Then they discuss the design of minimum pensions schemes - means-tested or not - as well as the disincentives they introduce for the economic and social behavior of households including labor supply, saving and family solidarity. Finally, the authors use household survey data to simulate the fiscal cost and the impact on poverty rates of alternative minimum pension schemes in the 18 countries. They show that a universal minimum pension would substantially reduce poverty among the elderly (except in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay where minimum pension systems already exist and poverty rates are low). Such schemes have much to be commended in terms of incentives, spillover effects and administrative simplicity, but they have a high fiscal cost. The latter is a function of the age at which benefits are awarded, the prevailing longevity, the generosity of benefits, the efficacy of means testing, and the fiscal capacity of the country.

Debt Markets --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Health --- Household survey --- Human Development --- Impact on Poverty --- Income --- Inequality --- Insurance --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Means testing --- Nutrition and Population --- Old Age --- Old age poverty --- Poor --- Poor areas --- Poor countries --- Population Policies --- Poverty gap --- Poverty line --- Poverty rates --- Poverty Reduction --- Price subsidies --- Regional Economic Development --- Rural --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Social assistance --- Social insurance programs