Questions tagged [poverty]

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3 votes
1 answer
293 views

Does development aid, negatively effect the development of developing countries?

Development aid Development aid or development cooperation (also development assistance, technical assistance, international aid, overseas aid, official development assistance (ODA), or foreign aid) ...
2 votes
0 answers
17 views

How to convert national poverty into an international comparable measure?

I want to compare the poverty of a subpopulation of my country (indigenous people) to other countries' poverty. To do that, I have the per capita income of each individual of my dataset expressed in ...
7 votes
2 answers
177 views

Why is poverty worse in larger cities?

In inner cities in the US there is more poverty (as a proportion of the population) than in mid-sized cities or small towns. Do we have a definitive answer as to why this is?
28 votes
10 answers
12k views

People pathologically hoard so much cash that they impoverish the entire nation

"If a man has an apartment stacked to the ceiling with newspapers we call him crazy. If a woman has a trailer house full of cats we call her nuts. But when people pathologically hoard so much cash ...
3 votes
1 answer
123 views

Are means-tested or universal programs more effective at reducing the poverty rate?

Advocates of means-tested programs frequently argue that they will remove inefficiences in the system by directing a larger proportion of the program's budget to people with a genuine need. By ...
1 vote
1 answer
425 views

How to calculate PPP$ from LCUs?

Is there one single formula which allows to calculate the income of a person in PPP\$ from her income in LCUs (local currency units), given for example the PPP conversion factor, GDP (LCU per ...
1 vote
3 answers
101 views

How long can I live in the United States with my German monthly income?

I see different (more or less abstract resp. specific) approaches to compare wealth (of individuals, regions, and countries): by living standards by living expenses by incomes/salaries by purchasing ...
1 vote
1 answer
57 views

What idea was proposed to remove global poverty?

I am not an economics student, but I would like to know about this simply but in details. I would like to understand this Noble Prize winning thoery by Abhijit Banerjee , Esther Duflo and Michael ...
0 votes
1 answer
29 views

Gapminder's Dollar Street and the role of self-supply

I find it quite hard to get a clear picture of what the income numbers in Gapminder's Dollar Street tell. How to compare \$27 in Burundi with \$10,098 in China? What would it mean that the family in ...
12 votes
2 answers
878 views

$1.25 PPP per day poverty threshold - What precisely does it mean?

As Wikipedia states: In 2008, the World Bank came out with a revised figure of $1.25 at 2005 purchasing-power parity (PPP). (Update: In 2015, this was updated to $\$1.90$ at 2015 PPP.) Wikipedia ...
1 vote
0 answers
21 views

Reference recommendation on the causal relationship between family size and children's educational attainment, or the quantity-quality trade-off

I am currently reading both Poor Economics and Factfulness, and two seemingly contradictory statements jump out at me. From Factfulness, and I am kind of taking this statement out of context, but it ...
1 vote
2 answers
300 views

Why don't economists recommend voluntary childlessness to fight poverty?

Please see the titled question. Poverty obviously demands pressing solutions, let alone a stopgap. Dasgupta beneath refers to "the best Desta’s world can do": isn't Voluntary childlessness ...
4 votes
0 answers
80 views

How Africans use their wages?

I was researching poverty in Africa and was reading about their daily wages. Based on the article linked, 2/3 of Africans live on less than $1.25 USD, a day. However, what this article and many ...
2 votes
2 answers
242 views

What's the Cause of Mexico's Poverty Rate?

According to various sources (source listed in parentheses): Mexico's unemployment rate is 3.3% (Trading Economics) Mexico's literacy rate is 94.5% (Statistica) Mexico's upper secondary graduation ...
-1 votes
1 answer
79 views

How is infant mortality rate an indicator of living standards?

My textbook says, "Some of the best indicators of living standards are the average life expectancies and infant mortality rates already mentioned." How does babies not dying within their first year ...
2 votes
2 answers
136 views

Is this a realistic solution to world poverty?

The idea: By convincing the U.S. that ending world poverty would actually return so much money back to the U.S. that it would more than compensate for the cost of providing the resources needed to end ...
1 vote
3 answers
99 views

Why are capital gains not counted in a poverty status calculation?

So according to the US census office capital gains are not included when trying to figure out if a household is living in poverty. Does this mean if I have one billion dollars in index funds that I am ...
2 votes
2 answers
134 views

Is poverty rightly measured internationally?

According to the World Bank, Argentina has 3.63% or people living in poverty. As a subjective assessment of someone living there, this is completely ridiculous. Rates measured by Argentine government ...
5 votes
2 answers
300 views

How many people in the world were living below 15 dollars a day in the last decades?

The question I really want to make is if poverty is decreasing of increasing worldwide, but since I guess there is no way to objectively define poverty, that question doesn't fit in here. I was always ...
1 vote
1 answer
56 views

Effect on GINI of eliminating poverty in China

China eliminated extreme urban poverty this year and is on schedule to eliminate it in the rest of the country by the end of 2020. How do I calculate the approximate impact of this change for China'...
1 vote
2 answers
589 views

Are American poverty rates increasing? What about global poverty rates

http://www.npc.umich.edu/poverty/ https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-poverty-people.html I have heard numerous times that the future has gotten better. ...
2 votes
0 answers
69 views

Is there proof that today more than 50% of the lowest income society lives worse than 50 years ago

The Economist on 12.11.2016 number (first number after getting US election results) wrote: "In real terms median male earnings are still lower than they were in the 1970s. In the past 50 years, ...
3 votes
3 answers
210 views

Why do cities with rich areas still contain poor areas?

A cynic would attribute the disparity (and the failures to gentrify) to indifference or inattention, (or worse) disdaining neglect or ignoring, by the politicians and rich of the poor in the poor ...
6 votes
2 answers
229 views

Can savings and poverty coexist?

Many governments try to decrease savings in the economy so that recessions do not occur. Does it make sense for savings and poverty to coexist though at significant scales? Let's say a population was ...
1 vote
0 answers
203 views

Economic Effects of BIM [closed]

The Boston Consulting Group has suggested BIM will save the Construction Industry $1.7 trillion /pa and increasing by 2025. What effect will this have, if any, on social issues such as poverty, on ...
6 votes
2 answers
354 views

How much would it take to end global extreme poverty?

E.g., according to this page, Jeffrey Sachs estimated that it would take $175bn/year for 20 years to do so. What are some other estimates?
6 votes
1 answer
103 views

Is there a study of world poverty rates over time pre 1800?

There seems to be research showing that world poverty rates have declined since 1800, see eg this. Is there any research on world poverty rates before this period? I am guessing that during this ...
0 votes
0 answers
157 views

Is it likely as automation continues to make more jobs obselete, starvation and poverty levels will rise very badly? [duplicate]

I wanted to know facts, thoughts and such since this article (which was big news that trended this week) popped up: http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/robot-may-take-your-job-next-few-years-n499556 ...
0 votes
0 answers
59 views

More privileges to the rich and less rights for the poor in the Great Depression?

I would like to know if in the Great Depression (1930s) the government of US and other Western governments increased the taxes for the poor or if they reduced the incomes and the rights of the poor. ...
0 votes
0 answers
71 views

Are things any better in what society considers "third world countries" as they were years ago? If things are better, how did they improve and why?

For years I've seen non-stop commercials of countries in the continent of Africa showing kids who live in sewage huts, parents are dead, war gangs and criminals rule their lives. Like in Captain ...
2 votes
2 answers
173 views

If America's economy collapsed what would happen to all of the citizens? What if the whole global economy collapsed? [closed]

My journalism professor is not an expert in finance or economics but has studied history. She is always giving us a negative lecture on the America's economy and how the rich are taking al of the ...
1 vote
1 answer
357 views

What is a good AUSTERITY indicator?

I am writing a paper on European poverty and I am using a treatment control setup similar to Difference-in-Difference methods. Now, since the data I am using is rather recent, I would like to ...
1 vote
2 answers
96 views

Proving or disproving hypothesis?

I took statistics class years ago in my college and I don't remember much of it now. I am into public policy research now and I am bit confused about about what conclusion to make from available ...
2 votes
2 answers
173 views

Erik Reinert's conclusions and experiments in economics

I have just read Erik Reinert's, "How Rich Countries Got Rich… and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor". Can anybody advise me some further reading on this topic? I wonder, in particular, if there were ...
3 votes
3 answers
75 views

Why is it that poverty incidence is high in the agricultural sector?

I read this article earlier, and the "experts" there say: "The incidence of poverty is very high in agriculture because of its low productivity." "The incidence of poverty is very high in ...
8 votes
2 answers
551 views

Why some countries are wealthier than others?

Twin-peak of economic growth is one of the concepts discussed in economics. Most of explanations for poverty traps are baseed on the lack of infrastructures and public goods. How could be another main ...
11 votes
3 answers
331 views

Influential Theory in the Economics of Poverty

As far as I can tell, research on the economics of poverty is very empirically driven, and this is probably appropriate. What kind of economic theory has been developed though? I'd also be interested ...