Download or read book Metrics Matter written by Sara Kimberlin and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The way poverty is measured shapes the types of policy solutions perceived to be possible and appropriate to address poverty, as poverty measurement produces information about who is poor, how many people are poor, and why they are poor. The traditional approach to measuring poverty in the United States suffers from two serious shortcomings, which limit the usefulness of the data produced to inform poverty policy. First, the official federal poverty measure (OPM) traditionally used to determine who qualifies as poor is based on consumption data from the 1960s and does not reflect current living patterns or costs of basic needs. Second, poverty in the United States is typically measured on an annual basis, using a cross-sectional analysis approach, which fails to capture information about the duration of poverty, though short-term poverty and long-term poverty have been shown to have different demographics, and long-term poverty is associated with more severe impacts on life outcomes. This study addresses these two shortcomings, by using an alternative poverty measure recently developed by the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), in place of the OPM to determine who qualifies as poor, and by analyzing poverty from a longitudinal rather than cross-sectional perspective, examining chronic or long-term poverty and transient or short-term poverty as distinct phenomena. Prior research has examined poverty in the U.S. using alternative poverty measures including the SPM, but only from a cross-sectional perspective. Other research has examined U.S. poverty from a longitudinal perspective, but using the OPM or a closely derived poverty measure. This study thus fills a gap in the existing research on poverty in the United States, by measuring poverty longitudinally using the better-grounded Supplemental Poverty Measure. Data for this study were drawn from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), a comprehensive nationally representative longitudinal dataset. Data included detailed household income, benefit, housing, and expense information used to construct annual poverty status using the SPM, as well as individual and household demographic variables, collected biennially from 1998 to 2008, thus representing six data years. Descriptive analysis was conducted using individuals as the unit of analysis (n= 8,375) while multivariate regression analysis was conducted using households as the unit of analysis (n=4,188). Complex survey weights were used in all analyses to adjust for differential sampling and attrition. Multiple imputation was used to impute missing values for one of the components used to construct SPM poverty status and for one of the demographic covariates. Chronic poverty was defined as poor under the SPM in more than half of the years examined (i.e. 4 or more of 6 years), while transient poverty was defined as poor under the SPM in at least one year but not more than half of the years (i.e. 1 to 3 of 6 years). Nonpoor was defined as not poor under the SPM in any year. Descriptive analysis was used to examine the prevalence and demographics of chronic and transient poverty, to compare the demographics of chronic and transient poverty using the Supplemental Poverty Measure versus using the official federal poverty measure, and to examine the impact of existing government benefits, private resources, and household expenses on chronic and transient poverty rates. Results showed that chronic poverty was a rare phenomenon, affecting only 2.1% of the sample or approximately 1 in 50 individuals, while transient poverty was fairly common, affecting 18.9% of the sample or approximately 1 in 20 individuals. The demographics of chronic and transient poverty were somewhat different, with groups that experienced high rates of transient poverty generally demonstrating even more disproportionately high rates of chronic poverty. Thus chronic poverty was more concentrated among particularly disadvantaged groups, while the population affected by transient poverty was still disadvantaged but more similar to the overall sample. The rates of chronic and transient poverty calculated using the SPM were statistically significantly different from the rates calculated using the official federal poverty measure, for both the overall sample and for many demographic subgroups. In general, chronic poverty rates were lower, and transient poverty rates were higher, when using the SPM versus using the OPM. Finally, government benefits were shown to have a substantial impact on both chronic and transient poverty rates, reducing the overall transient poverty rate from 23.9% to 18.9%, a difference of 5.0 percentage points, and reducing the overall chronic poverty rate from 10.8% to 2.1%, a reduction of 8.7 percentage points. One observed effect of government benefits was to increase household resources just enough to shift some individuals out of chronic poverty into transient poverty. The impact of government benefits on chronic and transient poverty rates was different for different demographic subgroups. Seniors experienced the greatest reduction in transient and especially chronic poverty rates, essentially due to Social Security, while children experienced less of a reduction. For immigrants, the dominant effect of government benefits was to shift individuals out of chronic into transient poverty. Multivariate regression, specifically multinomial logistic regression, was used to examine the predictors of transient and chronic poverty. Analysis specifically examined whether the predictors of each type of poverty, versus nonpoor status, corresponded to economic theory which posits that transient poverty is driven by temporary reductions in income (e.g. job layoff), while chronic poverty is driven by an inadequate long-term base of human and material assets needed to generate income (e.g. lack of education or presence of disability). Results showed that chronic poverty was significantly associated with asset limitations, including particularly non-high school graduate status, immigrant status, and long-term disability in a high housing cost area. Transient poverty was significantly associated with one variable linked to short-term income disruption, namely short-term unemployment. However, transient poverty was also significantly predicted by variables representing asset limitations, though most of these covariates had a stronger association with chronic poverty than transient poverty. The association of asset limitations with transient poverty appeared to be partly explained by the fact that government benefits shifted some asset-limited households, who would be expected to be chronically poor, out of chronic poverty and into transient poverty. Results of this study suggest implications for both research and policy. The finding that rates of chronic and transient poverty differ depending on whether the Supplemental Poverty Measure or official federal poverty measure is used suggests that researchers and policy analysts should consider using the SPM when analyzing longitudinal poverty, as the SPM has a stronger conceptual and empirical grounding than the OPM and did not simply function as a proxy for the OPM when examining poverty longitudinally in this study. Results related to the impact of government benefits on chronic and transient poverty rates suggest that policymakers should consider not just short-term policy impacts, but also the longitudinal impact of specific policies and of the overall package of government benefits on poverty. In addition, the differential impact of policies on chronic versus transient poverty, and on chronic and transient poverty among different demographic subgroups, should be considered. Findings related to the predictors of chronic versus transient poverty suggest that policies to address chronic poverty should target individuals with limited bases of human assets needed to generate income; such policies could function either through asset building or through long-term income supplementation or subsidies. Transient poverty could be addressed by enhancing short-term unemployment support, while policies targeted to asset-limited individuals would be likely to impact transient as well as chronic poverty. Further research to more clearly distinguish predictors of chronic poverty over and above transient poverty would be helpful for policy targeting purposes. Finally, prior research on the impact of chronic and transient poverty on life outcomes suggests that two types of poverty could be considered as priorities for policy interventions, due to greater impact on health and other outcomes, namely chronic poverty (as exposure to longer duration of poverty is associated with worse outcomes) and transient poverty occurring during the sensitive developmental period of childhood (as exposure to even short-term poverty during this sensitive period is associated with serious long-term health and developmental impacts). Results from this study show that addressing either of these two types of poverty could be feasible, if somewhat ambitious policy goals in terms of the number of individuals affected and the cumulative gap between their resources and needs.

Download or read book Determinants of Transient and Chronic Poverty written by Jyotsna Jalan and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1998 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Chronic and Transient Poverty written by Jean-Yves Duclos and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Measurement of Chronic and Transient Poverty written by Takashi Kurosaki and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Chronic vs Transient Poverty written by Anna Miller and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2013-05-13 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essay from the year 2013 in the subject Economics - Finance, grade: 65%, University of Nottingham (Economics), course: MSc in Applied Economics and Financial Economics, language: English, abstract: Measuring poverty requires long time periods. Different from other macroeconomic variables like the GDP or the inflation rate of a country, which can be determined immediately and quite precisely at every point in time, it is not that straightforward to measure the level or degree of poverty. If we were to count all people below a certain poverty line at a particular time, we would know only half of the story behind those poor. Some one can fall below the poverty line in one period but climb above it in the next; on the other hand, some one can be persistently below the poverty line. Therefore it is not enough to take only one snapshot of the scenario but one has to take into account that people can be either chronically or transiently poor and that there is a lot of movement in and out of poverty. Commonly poverty is measured by looking at consumption of households rather than their incomes. The reason is that income in many cases is only difficult to capture precisely. A self-employed farmer may not have a monetary income but only his harvest, which can be only inaccurately translated into monthly incomes. However, his consumption of food is easy to determine and can also be properly reported. This aspect allows for tracking the households’ poverty level at their different states such that a farmer’s consumption before the harvesting season is most likely to be lower than after and thus his poverty level might change from below the poverty line to above it.This kind of household moves in and out of poverty depending on the season and therefore it is not enough to interview him only once. Figure 1 shows how income can develop over a time period of 5 units. Whereas individual 1’s income is persistently below the poverty line and it experiences permanent deprivation, individual 3 manages to escape poverty after the third period. On the other hand, individual 2’s income rises above the poverty line in period 2 but declines again after the third, which is the typical pattern of transient poverty. However, we do not know for sure what happened after the fifth and before the first period and therefore cannot draw unambiguous conclusions. Considering the fact that poverty has two faces, one should analyse the shares of people that are chronically and transiently poor, respectively. Not only is this a correct measure of poverty but it also provides crucial information for the policymakers.

Download or read book Transient Proverty in Rural China written by Jyotsna Jalan and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1996 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Determinants of Transient and Chronic Poverty written by Jyotsna Jalan and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Both chronic and transient poverty are reduced by greater command over physical capital, and life-cycle effects for the two types of poverty are similar. But there the similarities end. Most policies aimed at reducing chronic poverty may have little or no effect on transient poverty. Are the determinants of chronic and transient poverty different? Do policies that reduce transient poverty also reduce chronic poverty?Jalan and Ravallion decompose measures of household poverty into chronic and transient components and use censored conditional quantile estimators to investigate the household and geographic determinants of both chronic and transient poverty, taking panel data for post-reform rural China. They find that a household's average wealth holding is an important determinant for both transient and chronic poverty. Although household demographics, levels of education, and the health status of members of the household are important for chronic poverty, they are not significant determinants of transient poverty.Both chronic and transient poverty are reduced by greater command over physical capital, and life-cycle effects for the two types of poverty are similar. But there the similarities end. Smaller and better-educated households have less chronic poverty, but household size and level of education matters little for transient poverty. Living in an area where health and education are better reduces chronic poverty but appears to be irrelevant to transient poverty. Nor are higher foodgrain yields a significant determinant of transient poverty, although they are highly significant in reducing chronic poverty.These findings suggest that China's poor-area development program may be appropriate for reducing chronic poverty but is unlikely to help reduce variations in consumption that households typically face in poor areas - the exposure to uninsured income risk that underlies transient poverty will probably persist. Other policy instruments may be needed to deal with transient poverty, including seasonal public works, credit schemes, buffer stocks, and insurance options for the poor.This paper - a product of Poverty and Human Resources, Development Research Group- is part of a larger effort in the group to reexamine the role of the informal sector.

Download or read book Chronic Poverty and All that written by Cesar Calvo and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We explore how to measure poverty over time, by focusing on trajectories of poverty rather than poverty at a particular point in time. We consider welfare outcomes over a period in time, consisting of a number of spells. We offer a characterization of desirable properties for measuring poverty across these spells, as well as an explicit discussion of three issues. First, should there be scope for compensation so that a poor spell can be compensated for by a non-poor spell? Second, is there scope for discounting or should all spells be equally valued? Third, does the actual sequence of poor spells matter, for example whether they are consecutive or not? We offer a number of measures that implicitly offer different answers to these questions, in a world of certainty. Finally, we also offer an extension towards a forward-looking measure of vulnerability, defined as the threat of poverty over time, that incorporates risk. An application to data from Ethiopia shows that especially the assumption of compensation results in different inference on poverty.

Download or read book The Measurement of Chronic and Transitory Poverty with Application to the United States written by Joan R. Joan and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper proposes a method of measuring chronic and transitory poverty based on any additively-decomposable index of aggregate poverty. Chronic poverty and transitory poverty in the United States are measured using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1987 interviewing year). In an attempt to identify the most impoverished subpopulations, poverty indices are decomposed according to race, type of household and educational qualifications of the head of the household.

Download or read book On the Definition and Measurement of Chronic Poverty written by Rolf Aaberge and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Many Dimensions of Poverty written by Nanak Kakwani and published by Palgrave MacMillan. This book was released on 2007 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows that poverty is multidimensional and hence needs to be analyzed from a multidisciplinary point of view, which has to include economic, sociological, psychological, anthropological, philosophical, legal and evolutionary perspectives. It also presents the new ideas on poverty analysis that have become very popular in recent years - the participatory approach, the concept of empowerment, the notion of vulnerability and the distinction between chronic and transient poverty.

Download or read book Measuring Chronic Non Income Poverty written by Isabel Günther and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Analytical Tools for Measuring Poverty Dynamics written by Arturo Martinez (Jr.) and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Fuzzy Chronic Poverty written by Catherine Porter and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A number of chronic poverty measures are now empirically applied to quantify the prevalence and intensity of chronic poverty, vis-à-vis transient experiences, using panel data. Welfare trajectories over time are assessed in order to identify the chronically poor and distinguish them from the non-poor, or the transiently poor, and assess the extent and intensity of intertemporal poverty. We examine the implications of measurement error in the welfare outcome for some popular discontinuous chronic poverty measures, and propose corrections to these measures that seeks to minimize the consequences of measurement error. The approach is based on a novel criterion for the identification of chronic poverty that draws on fuzzy set theory. We illustrate the empirical relevance of the approach with a panel dataset from rural Ethiopia and some simulations.

Download or read book Measuring Poverty Over Time written by Natalie Naïri Quinn and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The problem addressed in this D.Phil. thesis is the aggregation of welfare data across individuals and over time, in particular to construct measures of poverty which reflect an ethical poverty analyst.'s normative judgements regarding trajectories of wellbeing experienced by individuals in a society. The motivation' for the analysis is the provision of tools useful for the evaluation of poverty alleviation policies. Specification of appropriate assumptions concerning the information available to the poverty analyst and weak restrictions to her method of evaluation create a frame- work in which the consequences of normative judgements may be elucidat.ed. In this process some well known results in micro economic theory are generalised, rendering them applicable to the domain of analysis. Weak consistency properties together with anonymity are shown to restrict the class of available poverty measures to those which induce a well-defined ordering of the space of wellbeing trajectories. Particular properties of the trajectory ordering are motivated and imposed to de- velop a new class of int.ertemporal poverty measures which permit less intertemporal compensation of wellbeing as depth of poverty increases. It is shown that. this property precludes pure duration-sensitivity, making the intertemporal poverty measures pro- posed inapplicable to the measurement of chronic poverty. It is shown also that there exists a conflict between reasonable assumptions about intertemporal preferences and the measurement of chronicity or persistence of poverty, with the consequence that many recently suggested 'chronic poverty measures' are in fact insensitive to chronicity of poverty. A different measure is proposed, with properties which render it applicable to the measurement of chronic poverty. Imposing equivalence of the two measures for constant-wellbeing trajectories permits decomposition into chronic and transient com- ponents. These measures are applied to the analysis of poverty in rural Ethiopia in the period 1994-2004.

Download or read book The Measurement of Chronic and Transitory Poverty written by Joan Rosalie Rodgers and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 53 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Causes of Chronic and Transient Poverty and Their Implications for Poverty Reduction Policy in Rural China written by Shi Li and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study focuses on two components of total poverty: chronic and transient poverty, and investigates their relative importance in total observed poverty, as well as the determinants of each component. We found that transient poverty accounts for a large proportion of total poverty observed in the poor rural areas of China. By analyzing the determinants of the two types of poverty, we found that household demographic characteristics, such as age of the head of households, family sizes, labour participation ratio, and educational level of the head of the households, are very important to the poverty status of households. These factors matter more to chronic poverty than transient poverty, and have greater impacts on the poverty measured by consumption than that measured by income. Besides the demographic factors of households, other household factors like physical stocks, the composition of income, and the amount of cultivated lands also have significant effects on both chronic and transient poverty. It is also confirmed that change in cash holding and saving and borrowing grain are used by rural households to cope with income variation and smooth their consumption. Attributes of community where the households reside are also important to poverty.With very few exceptions, we did not find that poverty programs have significant impact on poverty reduction at the households' level. We interpreted this as the poverty programs benefiting the wealthy more than the poor in a given poor area. The main reason for this could be that the implementation design of these programs fails to target the poor.