Beyond Piketty: A new perspective on poverty and inequality in India

The socio-economic literature has focused much on how overall inequality in income distribution (frequently measured by the Gini coefficient) undermines the “trickle down” effect. In other words, the higher the inequality in the income distribution, the lower is the growth elasticity of poverty. However, with the publication of Piketty’s magnum opus (2014), and a subsequent study by Chancel and Piketty (2017) of evolution of income inequality in India since 1922, the focus has shifted to the income disparity between the richest 1% (or 0.01%) and the bottom 50%. Their central argument is that the rapid growth of income at the top end of millionaires and billionaires is a by-product of growth. The present study extends this argument by linking it to poverty indices in India. Based on the India Human Development Survey 2005–12 – a nationwide panel survey-we examine the links between poverty and income inequality, especially in the upper tail relative to the bottom 50%, state affluence (measured in per capita income) and their interaction or their joint effect. Another feature of our research is that we analyse their effects on the FGT class of poverty indices. The results are similar in as much as direction of association is concerned but the elasticities vary with the poverty index. The growth elasticities are negative and significant for all poverty indices. In all three cases, the disparity between the income share of the top 1% and share of the bottom 50% is associated with greater poverty. These elasticities are much higher than the (absolute) income elasticities except in the case of the poverty gap. The largest increase occurs in the poverty gap squared – a 1% greater income disparity is associated with a 1.24% higher value of this index. Thus the consequences of even a small increase in the income disparity are alarming for the poorest.     

Middle School Children's Perceptions on Welfare and Poverty: An Exploratory, Qualitative Study

This study was undertaken to determine how middle school children assess the effects of welfare reform on their daily lives. The study consisted of thirty interviews with children and their mothers recruited from a middle school in a large, metropolitan area. From the children's perspective, multiple jobs and evening/night hours interfered with the child-parent relationship. Other consequences included grades going down and not getting to school on time. All the children stated that mothers should work, but most children felt mothers should only work when their children are in school. Welfare and poverty were issues about which children were teased at school.     

Japan's “New Homeless”

Since the mid-1990s, homelessness has become a major issue of public discussion in Japan, and is often viewed as a new social problem facing Japanese society. The issue of homelessness contrasts images of the absence of poverty and homelessness in postwar Japan, often explained based on the unique features of Japanese-style employment and welfare, containing poverty and unemployment. This paper contrasts these views with a perspective on the continuity of poverty, and homelessness in postwar Japan. Specifically, I discuss the characteristics of homelessness in Tokyo, how they relate to the structure of the economy and employment practices, and how the problems of today's homeless are accommodated in the welfare system. I argue that the homeless cast light on patterns of loss of employment, housing, and means of subsistence, characteristic to Japan's economy and welfare system, and contribute to a new understanding of the dynamics of poverty in contemporary Japan.     

浅析新时期我国人口较少民族的扶贫开发对策

改革开放以来,我国人口较少民族在各方面得到了巨大的发展,然而,由于粗放式发展、自然环境、历史等方面的原因,我国人口较少民族少数地区仍至今存在着不同程度的贫困问题,影响了小康社会的全面实现。本文即围绕我国人口较少民族的部分特殊性,以科学发展观为指导,探讨在新的历史时期我国人口较少民族的扶贫开发对策。     

Inference for the measurement of poverty in the presence of a stochastic weighting variable

Empirical applications of poverty measurement often have to deal with a stochastic weighting variable such as household size. Within the framework of a bivariate distribution function defined over income and weight, I derive the limiting distributions of the decomposable poverty measures and of the ordinates of stochastic dominance curves. The poverty line is allowed to depend on the income distribution. It is shown how the results can be used to test hypotheses concerning changes in poverty. The inference procedures are briefly illustrated using Belgian data. An erratum to this article can be found at     

当代中国农村扶贫开发的历史经验

当代中国农村扶贫开发的历史经验主要是:一、制定符合国情的贫困标准,明确扶贫开发的具体帮扶对象;二、坚持开发式扶贫,把解决贫困问题与对贫困地区进行全面开发结合起来;三、坚持政府主导,广泛动员和组织全社会力量参与扶贫开发;四、积极开展与国际社会在扶贫开发领域中的交流与合作;五、高度重视和充分发挥科技教育在扶贫开发中的重要作用。     

The Measurement of Multidimensional Poverty

Many authors have insisted on the necessity of defining poverty as a multidimensional concept rather than relying on income or consumption expenditures per capita. Yet, not much has actually been done to include the various dimensions of deprivation into the practical definition and measurement of poverty. Existing attempts along that direction consist of aggregating various attributes into a single index through some arbitrary function and defining a poverty line and associated poverty measures on the basis of that index. This is merely redefining more generally the concept of poverty, which then essentially remains a one dimensional concept. The present paper suggests that an alternative way to take into account the multi-dimensionality of poverty is to specify a poverty line for each dimension of poverty and to consider that a person is poor if he/she falls below at least one of these various lines. The paper then explores how to combine these various poverty lines and associated one-dimensional gaps into multidimensional poverty measures. An application of these measures to the rural population in Brazil is also given with poverty defined on income and education.     

是经济贫困还是文化贫困?--评第三届鲁迅文学奖中篇小说《好大一对羊》

云南昭通市作家夏天敏的中篇小说<好大一对羊>的深刻之处,是作者对红土高原农民生命处境的烦扰窘困背后的文化贫困进行思考,可作为当下中国贫困山区人们生存状态、思维方式、价值取向的批判性文本.作品在揭露扶贫工作中存在的形式主义、官僚主义给当地群众带来灾难的同时,揭示出来自农民思想意识深处的文化贫困.从而使读者认识到,对贫困地区的扶贫不仅仅是经济上的扶贫,更为重要的是文化上的扶贫.     

雷诺润滑系统中的瞬态响应和稳定性分析

章建立了雷诺润滑系统中的流体瞬态压力方程和镜板的运动方程，分析了该系统的瞬态响应和相对阻尼系数以及特征值，结果表明，雷诺润滑系统不会处于负阻尼运动状态，且系统是稳定的。     

全球视野内的中国贫困问题研究

中国贫困问题的研究应顺应贫困研究国际趋势其中国贫困走向进行相应调整,即顺应贫困演变趋势,从研究绝对贫困向研究相对贫困转化;改变政策取向,从关注集体贫困向关注个体贫困转化;拓宽研究范围,从研究物质贫困向人文贫困转化;转变研究方法,从一般经济学分析拓宽到制度经济学分析。在对策设计上,应从加强反贫困制度建设、实行瞄准贫困人口的扶贫政策、缩小收入差距和关注人文贫困等方面加以考虑。