钢琴诗人肖邦的夜曲不只是写“夜”

肖邦夜曲所具有的独特魅力,影响了他之后整个19世纪的欧洲钢琴音乐。内在的思想情感意蕴与独特的音乐语言的高度融合,贯穿了肖邦的全部夜曲。从肖邦夜曲中,我们可以体味到遐想静谧的画面、诗意盎然的意境、船歌摇曳的节奏、激情和内心风暴的宣泄、意味深长的悲情性独白、悲剧性与英雄性的高度融合。它表现的是夜,但绝不仅仅是＂夜＂,它更表现出了诗人的美感,表现出了＂情景交融＂的境界,表现出了丰富的和声色彩和精雕细琢的钢琴织体,实现了自身风格的色彩变换。     

自然灾害对农户贫困脆弱性影响研究——以云南禄劝县旱灾为例

农户贫困受自然灾害影响,而农户自身生计资产又能有效抵御这种灾害所带来的风险。针对西南地区2009年遭遇的60年未遇的严重旱情,在回顾相关文献基础上,以国家级民族扶贫重点县云南禄劝县为例,对自然灾害与农户贫困脆弱性的关系进行研究。从风险因素和抵御风险因素两方面对禄劝县各乡镇2009年旱情与农户贫困脆弱性进行因子分析,实证得出结论：禄劝县贫困脆弱度较高,保持水土,增加绿化面积和提高低保农户比重可以有效地抵御旱情风险、缓解贫困。     

Semi‐conditional cash transfers in the form of family allowances for children and adolescents in the informal economy in Argentina

In 2009, Argentina introduced a new transfer programme for children and adolescents younger than age 18 (Universal Child Allowance) that extended coverage under the contributory programme for family allowances to include families in the informal economy and families of unemployed persons. This article describes this innovative programme, compares it with similar programmes in Latin America and analyses its impact on coverage and its possible effects on the welfare of the population. The results indicate that the extension of access to this type of benefit has reduced considerably the coverage gap for the poor and indigent and supports efforts to consolidate the operations of different and poorly coordinated transfer programmes.     

The prevalence and composition of asset poverty in Canada: 1999, 2005, and 2012

A household is considered asset poor if its assets (financial assets or net worth, taken separately) are insufficient to maintain well‐being at a low‐income threshold for 3 months. We provide the first national‐level estimates of asset poverty for Canada, using the 1999, 2005, and 2012 cycles of the Survey of Financial Security, and juxtapose these estimates with income poverty. The analysis provides new insight into economic insecurity by showing that asset poverty rates are consistently two to three times higher than income poverty rates. In addition to the prevalence of asset poverty across socio‐demographic groups, we analyzed how the composition of the poor change over time. Age and geography shape the risk for asset poverty in distinct ways. We found that while education appears to play a comparable role in shaping both income poverty and asset poverty, immigration places Canadians at a relatively higher risk of income poverty but not asset poverty. Key Practitioner Message: ? Practitioners ought to consider assets as well as income in assessing economic vulnerability; ? Asset poverty levels are 2–3 times higher than income poverty levels; ? Certain groups (e.g., immigrants) may be income poor but maintain sufficient assets.     

Families with young children in times of economic downturn: Implications for social work practice

In response to the global financial crisis, social policies in Europe and elsewhere incorporated a logic of social investment to reduce (child) poverty and social inequality. Several critiques, however, have been raised against the narrowness of this discourse. In order to introduce another way of seeing, an interview study was conducted inspired by the interpretative paradigm of lifeworld orientation. This has allowed us to acquire a critical, in‐depth understanding of the consequences of economic downturn and unemployment for families with young children (0–3 years old), from their point of view. Findings highlight the importance of listening to parents here and now, in order to be able to take account of their concrete, lived realities within the context of the broader society and critically assess these realities according to principles of human dignity and social justice. Implications for social work practice are discussed.     

Postretirement work and volunteering by poverty groups informed by role theory

This study uses role theory to examine the association between postretirement work and volunteering among retirees and to determine whether this association varies across poverty status. Data came from the 2012 wave of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). The sample was restricted to respondents of older retirees (N = 6,619). We found that postretirement work positively influenced volunteering. However, poverty can be a risk factor of volunteering among older retirees. The positive effect of post-retirement work was found to be more significant in the near-poverty group. We provide an empirical foundation to help inform volunteer programs for retirees.     

The effects of income transfers on poverty reduction in people with disabilities in South Korea

Using a nationally representative sample dataset from the 2016 Korean Welfare Panel Study, we examined the anti‐poverty effects of income transfers in people with disabilities. Our findings indicate that in households with a person with a disability, income transfers decreased by 55.9% and 84.8% of the pre‐transfer poverty rate and poverty gap, respectively. Before income transfers, households with a person with a disability were 1.94 times more likely to be poor compared to those without a person with a disability. When income transfers were offered, the chance of being poor in the disability group was only 1.11 times higher than that in the non‐disability group. Findings from the aggregated data suggest that means‐tested income transfers were more effective in reducing poverty levels than social insurance or private income transfers. At the individual level, the provision of means‐tested programs was also more likely to decrease the likelihood of experiencing poverty than social insurance and private income transfers.     

困境与超越：扶贫工作的政治学分析

扶贫开发是国家治理的重要内容,有着丰富的政治意涵,展示着执政党执政、政府治理的基本过程和价值归属。中国的扶贫工作带有着明显的运动式、项目制、压力型的色彩,在取得巨大成效的同时,也有着走向无序化、无效化的风险。以现代国家建设和政党建设的基本理念,构筑多中心的贫困治理格局,建立现代化的扶贫开发的制度体系,走向法治化、制度化、民主化、规范化是扶贫开发的治本之策。     

A bivariate distribution with Lomax and geometric margins

We develop a stochastic model describing the joint distribution of $(X,N)$, where $N$ has a geometric distribution while $X$ is the sum of $N$ dependent, heavy-tail Pareto components. Models of this form arise in many applications, ranging from hydro-climatology to finance and insurance. We present fundamental properties of this vector, including marginal and conditional distributions, moments, representations, and parameter estimation. We also include an example from finance, illustrating modeling potential of this new bivariate distribution.     

Linking taxation and social protection: Evidence on redistribution and poverty reduction in Ethiopia

Although redistribution results from the simultaneous effects of taxes and transfers, analyses of their distributional effects in low‐income countries have largely been undertaken from singular perspectives. This article jointly assesses the distributional effect of taxes and transfers (through social protection) using Ethiopia as a case study. We find that Ethiopia's flagship social protection programme is more effective than income taxation in achieving poverty reduction, while neither policy achieves a sizeable reduction in overall inequality. We also find that Ethiopia does not currently have the capacity to close the poverty gap or to fully fund its main safety net programme using domestic income sources alone.