Poverty: It is Not Just an Economic Concern

The purpose of this research study is to examine and identify poverty’s role in a students’ academic career, and especially in the student’s reading ability and test scores. Researchers have studied and recorded data for decades on poverty’s role in education. Research has indicated that poverty is one of the negative influences on a student’s academic career. Typically, schools that reside in a low-income residential or urban area have lower test scores and academic abilities among their students. Should teachers be accounted and paid on whether or not their students’ can pass a test when poverty, an unmanageable issue, is extremely apparent? The results from this study indicates that the affect of a student’s ability to learn is affected by poverty, but implementations of numerous reading activities may increase test scores overtime

John D. Jackie Gaughan Clubhouse

“Alleviating urban poverty depends significantly on economic growth and the nation’s ability to provide more, and better-paying, jobs” (Lemons, 2015).https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/educ_sys_202/1009/thumbnail.jp

The Dynamics and Persistence of Poverty: Evidence from Italy

This article studies the dynamics and persistence of poverty in Italy during the nineties (1994-2001). Two definitions of poverty are analyzed: income poverty and a multidimensional index of life-style deprivation. For both definitions, poverty exit and re-entry rates are estimated and combined to compute measures of poverty persistence over multiple spells. A picture of high poverty turnover emerges according to either definition. Multi-spell hazard rate models have been estimated to assess the relative importance of several demographic and labor market characteristics in shaping poverty persistence at the individual level. The results highlight the weaknesses of the Italian labor market, the insufficiencies of the existing social security system and the deep territorial dualism in generating persistent poverty for certain groups of the population. We have stressed the ability of the two definitions to provide a generally consistent characterization of the poverty persistence risks faced by various population subgroups, but also the additional insights to be gained by analyzing the two definitions in parallel in a longitudinal context.Income poverty; multidimensional deprivation; poverty persistence; hazard-rate models; multiple spells

The Impact of Simple Institutions in Experimental Economies with Poverty Traps

We introduce an experimental approach to study the effect of institutions on economic growth. In each period, agents produce and trade output in a market, and allocate it to consumption and investment. Productivity is higher if total capital stock is above a threshold. The threshold externality generates two steady states – a suboptimal poverty trap and an optimal steady state. In a baseline treatment, the economies converge to the poverty trap. However, the ability to make public announcements or to vote on competing and binding policies, increases output, welfare and capital stock. Combining these two simple institutions guarantees that the economies escape the poverty trap

Rural Income Dynamics in Post-Crisis Indonesia

Indonesia is, what the World Development Report 2008 calls, a transforming country characterized by increasing rural-urban income disparities and high poverty rates. Bearing these facts in mind, it is striking how little is known about causes and mechanism of the underlying determinants of poverty in rural Indonesia. In this study we aim to shed more light on the determinants of rural incomes and poverty in Indonesia. Drawing on a unique and highly detailed rural household panel data set for Central Sulawesi we investigate what are the drivers of rural income growth. Moreover, exploiting the panel structure of our data set we are able to control explicitly for individual- and time-specific effects and for endogeneity issues in our estimations. In addition, in order to identify whether our findings might hold lessons for all of Indonesia, we upscale our analysis to the national level by comparing our results with the national household data survey SUSENAS. Our results indicate that a sharp increase in rural incomes took place in the post-crisis period. Moreover, the ability to alleviate poverty and to enjoy income growth has been strongly associated with a households ability to diversify into the non-farm sector of the economy, to focus on higher value-added agricultural activities and its ability to invest into new production techniques. These results seem to hold for most of rural Indonesia and are robust to various model specifications. --Rural non-farm income,agricultural productivity growth,rural poverty

Targeting Poverty in the Courts: Improving the Measurement of Ability to Pay

Ability-to-pay determinations are essential when governments use money-based alternative sanctions, like fines, to enforce laws. One longstanding difficulty in the U.S. has been the extreme lack of guidance on how courts are to determine a litigant’s ability to pay. The result has been a seat-of-the-pants approach that is inefficient and inaccurate, and, as a consequence, very socially costly. Fortunately, online platform technology presents a promising avenue for reform. In particular, platform technology offers the potential to increase litigant access, reduce costs, and ensure consistent and fair treatment—all of which should lead to more accurate sanctions. We use interviews, surveys, and case-level data to evaluate and discuss the experiences of six courts that recently adopted an online ability-to-pay assessment tool that streamlines and standardizes ability-to-pay determinations. Our findings suggest that the online tool improves accuracy and therefore the effectiveness of fines as punishments, and so it may make the use of fines as sanctions more socially attractive

Avoiding chronic and transitory poverty

This paper uses a panel data of 347 households in Egypt to measure changes in household consumption between 1997 and 1999 and to identify causes behind the changes. Per capita consumption decreased for the households during this time and, while not dramatic, it occurred at all points along the distribution. Over the two-year period, the number of households that fell into poverty was over twice as large as the number of households that climbed out of poverty. About two-thirds of overall poverty was chronic (average consumption over time was below the poverty line), and almost half of all poor were always poor. We use quantile regression methods to identify the factors that explain total, chronic, and transitory poverty. While our analysis ably documents the extent of transitory poverty, it does not explain well the determinants of this type of poverty. The predominantly chronic nature of poverty in the sample, and our ability to identify associated characteristics, strengthens the case for targeting antipoverty interventions such as food subsidies.Household consumption. ,Poverty Egypt. ,Poverty Research Methodology. ,Poverty alleviation Egypt. ,Subsidies Egypt. ,Food relief Egypt. ,Households Egypt. ,

Avoiding chronic and transitory poverty

This paper uses a panel data of 347 households in Egypt to measure changes in household consumption between 1997 and 1999 and to identify causes behind the changes. Per capita consumption decreased for the households during this time and, while not dramatic, it occurred at all points along the distribution. Over the two-year period, the number of households that fell into poverty was over twice as large as the number of households that climbed out of poverty. About two-thirds of overall poverty was chronic (average consumption over time was below the poverty line), and almost half of all poor were always poor. We use quantile regression methods to identify the factors that explain total, chronic, and transitory poverty. While our analysis ably documents the extent of transitory poverty, it does not explain well the determinants of this type of poverty. The predominantly chronic nature of poverty in the sample, and our ability to identify associated characteristics, strengthens the case for targeting antipoverty interventions such as food subsidies.Household consumption. ,Poverty Egypt. ,Poverty Research Methodology. ,Poverty alleviation Egypt. ,Subsidies Egypt. ,Food relief Egypt. ,Households Egypt. ,

Perspectives about occupational justice: can poverty and occupational deprivation influence child development?

In this paper we will explore the concept of occupational justice, a term that describes a basic human right to have the opportunities and rights to participate in those activities and occupations that define us as individuals, family and community members by providing meaning and purpose to our lives. Conditions of poverty preclude the ability to participate in a wide range of activities and occupations that support well-being. An anticipated outcome of our paper is to explore how poverty negatively influences engagement in those activities and occupations that support health, productivity and life satisfaction

Insights from poverty maps for development and food relief program targeting: an application to Malawi

"Poverty mapping applies models of household welfare developed from detailed household consumption and expenditure surveys to the extensive but less detailed data from national censuses. A poverty map for Malawi, developed by drawing upon information from the 1997–98 Malawi Integrated Household Survey with the 1998 Malawi Population and Housing Census, provides aggregate estimates of household welfare and poverty at a highly disaggregated level—down to the level of local government wards. Given the close association between welfare and food security in most Malawi households, such a detailed poverty map can be of considerable value to development and relief organizations, as they plan and target activities to improve the ability of poor households to cope with food scarcity. This paper assesses the value of the Malawi poverty map with reference to two activities of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Malawi: the Food for Assets and Development (FFASD) public works program and the Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping (VAM) food insecurity information generation system. First, the poverty targeting efficiency of the FFASD program is evaluated using the poverty map to determine whether the FFASD projects are preferentially located in areas where disproportionate numbers of the poor are found. This is done in part by comparing the poverty targeting efficiency of the WFP program to that of the Malawi Social Action Fund Public Works Programme projects. Second, WFP employs the VAM methodology to determine how and where to employ its resources from year to year. The potential value of the poverty map as a component of the VAM process in Malawi is then considered. The results indicate that the poverty map is an effective and objective way to geographically target projects and programs on a poverty basis in Malawi. In assessing household vulnerability to food insecurity, the poverty map serves as a useful proxy indicator of spatial variability in the ability of the population to cope with food scarcity. Poverty maps, in those countries were they are available, should be a privileged data source for undertaking any national vulnerability analyses. However, the poverty map needs to be used with complementary data to better understand the risks households face that might result in food scarcity and the actual mechanisms households use to cope with such stresses." Authors' AbstractPoverty mapping, food security, Malawi, Food relief, Targeting,