Poverty In The United States: A Continuing And Growing Problem

In recent years, the ability to deal with the problem of poverty in the US, in light of the new “Federalism,” is an area of interest to scholars. The poverty rate over the past 50 years has fluctuated from a high of 22.4% in 1959 to a low of 11.1% in 1973. Under George Bush’s presidency, we again see an increase in the poverty rate to 12.7% in 2004. This paper provides an overview of poverty data for the 21st century, by region, race and age.  A discussion and comparison of median household income follows. Facts and figures are then provided/compared, tying in health care issues to income levels and citizenship/ethnicity. A brief introduction of the various attempts over the past years by the federal government to reduce the proportion of the American population that falls below the poverty line follows.  This section merely provides a listing of programs designed to satisfy social and equity considerations.  This paper does not provide the reader with the impact of these programs on the economy; a brief mention is provided to generate further thought and discussion.  The paper concludes with a summary of key elements of the above issues. The sole purpose is to provide an overview of historical data as concerns poverty, median household income and health insurance coverage. The ability to deal with the problem of poverty in the U S, is left for another paper

Purchasing Power Parity in Developing Countries: Evidence from Conventional and Fractional Cointegration Tests

This paper examines the long-run validity of purchasing power parity (PPP) for fourteen developing countries. The period examined is 1973:4 through 2002:8. The methods of Elliot, Rothemberg and Stock (1996), Kwiattkoski et al. (1992) and Geweke and Porter-Hudak (1983) are employed to detect the time series properties of exchange rates and consumer price indices of these countries. We find that these variables are nonstationary. We then utilize these data to test the PPP using both conventional and fractional approaches. Estimates of the cointegrating relations are obtained using estimators suggested by Stock and Watson (1993) and Phillips and Hanson (1990), respectively. The results are consistent with the argument that, during the recent floating exchange-rate period, PPP holds well, at least in a weak form, in developing countries where the general price level movements overshadow the factors causing deviations from the PPP

Foreign exchange reserves and import demand in a developing economy: the case of Pakistan

Conventional specifications of import demand in LDCs have commonly been plagued by implausible and unstable parameter estimates. This paper shows the importance of imposing long-run income homogeneity and of including foreign exchange reserves when estimating import demand function for an LDC. Using several cointegration techniques, it is shown that there is one linear relationship among real imports, real income, relative import prices and real foreign exchange reserves. In addition, by employing stability tests for cointegrated systems by Hansen (1992a), the paper shows that only when foreign exchange reserves and long-run unit-income homogeneity are accounted for does a constant parameter, long-run equilibrium relation emerge for Pakistan. Also, the ensuing short-run dynamic model is constant and data-coherent. Finally, the study provides information on the speed of adjustment to equilibrium and the median and mean time lags of adjustments of real imports to changes in their determinants. The results indicate a quick response of real imports to changes in their determinants.Foreign exchange-reserves, import demand, cointegration,