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Transport infrastructure is deemed to be central to development and consumes a large fraction of the development assistance envelope. Yet there is debate about the economic impact of road projects. This paper proposes an approach to assess the differential development impacts of alternative road construction and prioritize various proposals, using Nigeria as a case study. Recognizing that there is no perfect measure of economic well-being, a variety of outcome metrics are used, including crop revenue, livestock revenue, non-agricultural income, the probability of being multi-dimensionally poor, and local gross domestic product for Nigeria. Although the measure of transport is the most accurate possible, it is still endogenous because of the nonrandom placement of road infrastructure. This endogeneity is addressed using a seemingly novel instrumental variable termed the natural path: the time it would take to walk along the most logical route connecting two points without taking into account other, bias-causing economic benefits. Further, the analysis considers the potential endogeneity from nonrandom placement of households and markets through carefully chosen control variables. It finds that reducing transportation costs in Nigeria will increase crop revenue, non-agricultural income, the wealth index, and local gross domestic product. Livestock sales increase as well, although this finding is less robust. The probability of being multi-dimensionally poor will decrease. The results also cast light on income diversification and structural changes that may arise. These findings are robust to relaxing the exclusion restriction. The paper also demonstrates how to prioritize alternative road programs by comparing the expected development impacts of alternative New Partnership for Africa's Development projects.

Agriculture --- Banks and Banking Reform --- Development --- Economic Theory & Research --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Mpi --- Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index --- Nepad --- Roads --- Roads and Highways Performance --- Rural Development --- Rural Roads & Transport --- Transport --- Transport Economics Policy & Planning

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This paper presents evidence about the impact on school enrollment of a program in Ecuador that gives cash transfers to the 40 percent poorest families. The evaluation design consists of a randomized experiment for families around the first quintile of the poverty index and of a regression discontinuity design for families around the second quintile of this index, which is the program's eligibility threshold. This allows us to compare results from two different credible identification methods, and to investigate whether the impact varies with families' poverty level. Around the first quintile of the poverty index the impact is positive while it is equal to zero around the second quintile. This suggests that for the poorest families the program lifts a credit constraint while this is not the case for families close to the eligibility threshold.

Cash transfer programs --- Cash transfers --- Health Systems Development and Reform --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Human capital --- Human development --- Poor --- Poor families --- Poverty --- Poverty index --- Poverty Reduction --- Poverty reduction --- Poverty Reduction Strategies --- Rural Development --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Social programs

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This paper contributes to explain the cross-country heterogeneity of the poverty response to changes in economic growth. It does so by focusing on the structure of output growth. The paper presents a two-sector theoretical model that clarifies the mechanism through which the sectoral composition of growth and associated labor intensity can affect workers' wages and, thus, poverty alleviation. Then it presents cross-country empirical evidence that analyzes first, the differential poverty-reducing impact of sectoral growth at various levels of disaggregation, and the role of unskilled labor intensity in such differential impact. The paper finds evidence that not only the size of economic growth but also its composition matters for poverty alleviation, with the largest contributions from labor-intensive sectors (such as agriculture, construction, and manufacturing). The results are robust to the influence of outliers, alternative explanations, and various poverty measures.

Economic Growth --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Household Income --- Household Survey --- Income --- Income Distribution --- Income Inequality --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Poor --- Poor Countries --- Poor Households --- Poor Individuals --- Population Policies --- Poverty --- Poverty Alleviation --- Poverty Data --- Poverty Index --- Poverty Line --- Poverty Measures --- Poverty Reducing --- Poverty Reduction --- Poverty Reduction Strategies --- Pro-Poor Growth --- Rural --- Rural Areas --- Rural Development --- Rural Poverty Reduction

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November 1999 - Changes in Poland's family allowances and unemployment benefits have significant but different effects on different groups of households. In deciding on strategies to address long-term poverty, policymakers must take such differences into account. Okrasa analyzes how the incidence of household endowments and the allocation of social benefits affect families' transitions into and out of poverty. Using panel data for 1993-96 from Poland's Household Budget Survey, and a framework based on sample survival analysis techniques, Okrasa evaluates how various policies will affect households with specific characteristics that make them likely to become poor or to move out of poverty under different scenarios (including whether or not they receive a given amount of a particular type of social transfer). He also discusses how nonincome sources of welfare, such as savings, credits, and loans, affect the likelihood that families will become or stop being poor. He concludes that family allowances and unemployment benefits, the two major social programs analyzed, have significant but different effects on different groups of households (characterized in terms of the age, gender, marital status, and educational attainment of the head of household; the size, type, location, and sector of employment of the family or household; and the year in which the household fell into poverty). If the share of family allowances in total household income were reduced by 1 percent, for example, the average length of poverty would be increased by roughly 2 percent. But a 1 percent change in unemployment benefits would yield a 3 percent change in the average duration of poverty. Differences in hazard rates for various subgroups would be even greater. Households in villages were much more likely to fall into poverty than households in cities and large towns, but the poor in towns and cities had more difficulty exiting poverty. There was generally less poverty mobility among households headed by public sector employees than among those headed by employees in the private sector. Families with three or more children and one-parent families (and grandparents with children) faced the greatest risk of being poor; single-person households and childless married couples were the least endangered. Small nuclear families with one or two children and families without children fell between these two extremes. This paper - a product of Poverty and Human Resources, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to analyze the dynamics of poverty and the effectiveness of the safety net. The study was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under the research project Household Welfare Change during the Transition (RPO 681-21). The author may be contacted at wokrasa@worldbank.org.

Chronically Poor --- Economic Growth --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Household Budget --- Household Income --- Human Development --- Income --- Measures --- Poor --- Poor Households --- Population Policies --- Poverty --- Poverty Dynamics --- Poverty Index --- Poverty Profile --- Poverty Reduction --- Rural --- Rural Areas --- Rural Development --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Safety Nets and Transfers --- Savings --- Services and Transfers to Poor --- Social Policies --- Social Programs --- Social Protections and Labor --- Temporarily Poor --- Unemployment

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The final book from a towering pioneer in the study of poverty and inequality—a critically important examination of poverty around the worldIn this, his final book, economist Anthony Atkinson, one of the world’s great social scientists and a pioneer in the study of poverty and inequality, offers an inspiring analysis of a central question: What is poverty and how much of it is there around the globe? The persistence of poverty—in rich and poor countries alike—is one of the most serious problems facing humanity. Better measurement of poverty is essential for raising awareness, motivating action, designing good policy, gauging progress, and holding political leaders accountable for meeting targets. To help make this possible, Atkinson provides a critically important examination of how poverty is—and should be—measured.Bringing together evidence about the nature and extent of poverty across the world and including case studies of sixty countries, Atkinson addresses both financial poverty and other indicators of deprivation. He starts from first principles about the meaning of poverty, translates these into concrete measures, and analyzes the data to which the measures can be applied. Crucially, he integrates international organizations’ measurements of poverty with countries’ own national analyses.Atkinson died before he was able to complete the book, but at his request it was edited for publication by two of his colleagues, John Micklewright and Andrea Brandolini. In addition, François Bourguignon and Nicholas Stern provide afterwords that address key issues from the unfinished chapters: how poverty relates to growth, inequality, and climate change.The result is an essential contribution to efforts to alleviate poverty around the world.

Social stratification --- Social problems --- Social policy --- 339.21 --- Ongelijkheid en herverdeling van vermogens en inkomens. Inkomensbeleid --- Poverty. --- Poverty --- Equality. --- Case studies. --- Research.655 --- Destitution --- Wealth --- Basic needs --- Begging --- Poor --- Subsistence economy --- Egalitarianism --- Inequality --- Social equality --- Social inequality --- Political science --- Sociology --- Democracy --- Liberty --- Amartya Sen. --- Angus Deaton. --- Asian Development Bank. --- Atlas method. --- Calculation. --- Cambodia. --- Capability approach. --- Case study. --- Central Statistical Office (Poland). --- Child poverty. --- Climate change mitigation. --- Climate change. --- Commodity. --- Consumer. --- Consumption (economics). --- Demographic and Health Surveys. --- Developed country. --- Developing country. --- Development aid. --- Disposable and discretionary income. --- Economic growth. --- Economic inequality. --- Economy. --- Employment. --- Estimation. --- Eurostat. --- Extreme poverty. --- Family income. --- Famine. --- Finding. --- Head of Household. --- Household income. --- Household. --- Human Development Index. --- Human Development Report. --- Imputed rent. --- Income distribution. --- Income. --- Kenya. --- Latin America. --- Malaysia. --- Martin Ravallion. --- Measurement. --- Measures of national income and output. --- Median income. --- Millennium Development Goals. --- Month. --- Multidimensional Poverty Index. --- National Report. --- National Statistical Office (South Korea). --- National accounts. --- No Poverty. --- Oxford University Press. --- Percentage point. --- Percentage. --- Poverty in China. --- Poverty in India. --- Poverty in Poland. --- Poverty in the United States. --- Poverty reduction. --- Poverty threshold. --- Prevalence. --- Price index. --- Public economics. --- Purchasing power. --- Requirement. --- Rural area. --- Rural poverty. --- Sabina Alkire. --- Sampling (statistics). --- Saving. --- Social exclusion. --- Social protection. --- South Asia. --- Standard of living. --- Statistic. --- Statistics South Africa. --- Survey methodology. --- Sustainable Development Goals. --- Tanzania. --- Tax. --- Thomas Piketty. --- Time series. --- Trade-off. --- Uganda Bureau of Statistics. --- Uganda. --- Unemployment. --- United Nations Development Programme. --- United States Census Bureau. --- Urbanization. --- Wealth. --- Workforce. --- World Bank Group. --- World Bank. --- World Development Indicators. --- World Development Report. --- World population. --- Year. --- Zambia.