Search

We critically review conceptual and empirical issues surrounding the derivation of the international poverty line, expressed in PPP-adjusted dollars and linked to various rounds of the International Comparison Program (ICP). We find that there are some limitations in the current estimation of these lines, but show that statistically superior methods lead to lines that are relatively robust and confirm the $1.25 using 2005 PPPs and suggest $1.67-1.71 using 2011 PPPs (or close to the $1.90 proposed by the World Bank if we follow the World Bank's approach of adjusting inflation rates in some countries); they also roughly confirm the current shape of the proposed 'weakly relative' poverty line. Using the new absolute line based on 2011 PPPs would lead to substantially lower poverty in our estimation. The extent of the decline depends on whether and how one treats China, India, and Indonesia differently from other countries in the 2005 and 2011 PPPs. More seriously, we note that the dependence on successive ICP rounds creates conceptual and empirical problems that have become worse over time so that we suggest that it would be best to consider alternatives to the current reliance on ICP rounds and the resulting PPPs. As a short-term solution we propose to fix the international poverty line in national currencies using either the 2005 or 2011 level; in the medium term, we argue for global poverty measurement based on internationally coordinated national poverty measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2014 release of a new set of purchasing power parity (PPP) conversion factors (PPPs) for 2011 has prompted a revision of the World Bank's international poverty line. In revising the line, we have sought to minimize changes to the real purchasing power of the earlier $1.25 line (in 2005 PPPs), so as to preserve the integrity of the goalposts for international targets such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the World Bank's twin goals - which were set with respect to that line. In particular, the new line was obtained by inflating the same fifteen national poverty lines - originally used by Ravallion et al. (World Bank Econ. Rev. 23(2): 163-184 ) to construct the $1.25 line - to 2011 prices in local currency units, and then converting them to US dollars using 2011 PPP conversion factors. With a small approximation, this procedure yields a new international poverty line of $1.90 per person per day. In combination with other changes described in the paper, this revision leads to relatively small changes in global poverty incidence for 2011: from 14.5 % using the old method to 14.1 % using the new method. In 2012, the new reference year for the global count, we find 12.7 % of the world's population, or 897 million people, are living in extreme poverty. There are changes in the regional composition of poverty, but they are also relatively small. This paper documents methodological decisions taken in the process of updating both the poverty line and the consumption and income distributions at the country level, including issues of inter-temporal and spatial price adjustments. It also describes various caveats and limitations of the approach taken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The World Bank's international poverty line (IPL) of $1.90/day at 2011 PPPs is based on a collection of national poverty lines provided in Ravallion et al. (World Bank Econ. Rev. 23(2), 163-184, ), originally used to set the IPL of $1.25/day at 2005 PPPs. This paper proposes an approach for estimating a more recent, complete and comparable collection of national poverty thresholds from reported national poverty rates, and then presents a set of IPLs based on this new database of national poverty lines. In contrast to the lines used to estimate the $1.90 IPL, this approach produces national poverty lines that are (1) consistent with national poverty rates, (2) expressed in common units, and (3) provide greater support to the estimated IPL. These national poverty lines are used to estimate an extreme IPL, and three higher IPLs that are more relevant to higher-income countries. We provide evidence of the robustness and relevance of the $1.90 IPL as a measure of extreme poverty for low-income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to present a new global poverty line based on the 2011 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). To calculate a new global poverty threshold based on 2011 PPP, this paper moves away from the World Bank's method of anchoring a single global poverty line on the national poverty lines of the 15 poorest countries. It instead proposes an alternative method of using equivalent poverty lines. Each country is shown to have a different equivalent poverty line. This paper finds that there is no single international poverty line in 2011 PPP that is equivalent to $1.25 in 2005 PPP. Single poverty lines vary for each region because countries have experienced different inflation rates and have different PPP conversion rates between 2005 and 2011. To calculate a single poverty line in 2011 PPP, this paper measures the weighted average of equivalent poverty lines of 101 countries around the globe with weights proportional to their populations. Based on the new method, the corresponding poverty line is estimated at $1.93 in 2011 PPP. The World Bank has officially adopted the poverty line of $1.90 in 2011 PPP. This paper demonstrates that our proposed poverty line performs better than the World Bank's in terms of preserving the real purchasing power of the previous line of $1.25 in 2005 PPP. Given the new poverty threshold of $1.93, the number of poor worldwide is reduced by 6.42 million, with the reduction largely occurring in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to identify the degree of influence of social causes of poverty on the trends of citizens of Al-Mafraq Governorate. The study consisted of (294) researched persons, who were chosen using relative random sampling from the three provinces of Al-Mafraq Governorate (North -Eastern Badia, North Western Badia and Al-Mafraq Town (Al-qasabah) for the study purpose, a 16-item questionnaire was constructed and used for data collection. Descriptive and deductive analyses were used to determine substantial differences. The study revealed the following results: the degree of influence of social causes of poverty on the trends of citizens of Al-Mafraq Governorate was (high), reaching the arithmetic mean of the respondents (3.76: 5.00) in terms of: weak social safety nets, high population growth rate, women competing against men in the labor market, increased migration from rural areas to cities in search of better work, unsuitable work place and wages. In light of the results of this study, a number of scientific and practical recommendations have been presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the contribution of financial development to poverty reduction in 11 South Asian developing countries using panel data set over the time period 1990-2012. Design/methodology/approach – The stationarity properties are checked by using Levin-Lin-Chu and Im-Pesaran-Shin panel unit root tests. The paper applied the Pedroni’s panel co-integration test to examine the existence of long-run relationship. The coefficients of co-integration are examined by fully modified OLS (FMOLS) and the causal link is checked by panel causality test. Findings – The empirical results of Pedroni co-integration test confirm a long-run relationship between financial development and poverty reduction in South Asian developing economies. The findings of FMOLS method confirm a strong and positive relationship between financial development, trade openness, inflation and poverty reduction. Results of panel causality test indicate that there is a unidirectional causality running from financial development to poverty reduction variable. Research limitations/implications – The present study recommends appropriate economic and financial reforms focussing on financial inclusion to reduce poverty in selected South Asian economies. Originality/value – This paper is the first of its kind to empirically examine the causal relationship between financial sector development and poverty reduction in South Asian economies using modern econometric techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT We created a migration and earnings history from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to analyze the effects of youth county poverty rates on the adult earnings of white male migrants. We estimate a log wage equation that includes human capital measures, migration types, county poverty rates, and a rural-poverty rate interaction variable. Growing up in a rural county has a negative impact on adult wages independent of youth county poverty rates, but the rural effect is significantly greater for those who grew up in high poverty counties. Youth county poverty rates indirectly affect wages through the returns to migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) was recently introduced by the U.S. Census Bureau as an alternative measure of poverty that addresses many shortcomings of the official poverty measure (OPM) to better reflect the resources households have available to meet their basic needs. The Census SPM is avail- able only in the Current Population Survey (CPS). This paper describes a method for constructing SPM poverty estimates in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), for the biennial years 1998 through 2010. A public-use dataset of individual-level SPM status produced in this analysis will be available for download on the PSID website. Annual SPM poverty estimates from the PSID are presented for the years 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2010 and compared to SPM estimates for the same years derived from CPS data by the Census Bureau and independent researchers. We find that SPM poverty rates in the PSID are somewhat lower than those found in the CPS, though trends over time and impact of specific SPM components are similar across the two datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do we see persistence, recurrence, and new emergence of concentrated poverty in U.S. cities? In this article, we explore an understudied connection: whether an important part of the built environment—a series of attributes that constitute precarious housing—constitutes a durable substrate on which concentrated poverty predictably emerges and recurs and if so, how this might vary across the United States. Poverty grew fastest between 2000 and 2005–2009 in tracts that began the decade with high levels of rented one- to four-family housing, multifamily housing, housing between 20 and 25 years old, and households paying over 30% of their income for housing costs. In addition, poverty grew fastest in tracts with high percentages of black or Hispanic households in 2000. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore a novel first-order dominance (FOD) approach to poverty mapping and compare its properties to small-area estimation. The FOD approach uses census data directly, is straightforward to implement, is multidimensional allowing for a broad conception of welfare and accounts rigorously for welfare distributions in both levels and trends. An application to Mozambique highlights the value of the approach, including its advantages in the monitoring and evaluation of public expenditures. We conclude that the FOD approach to poverty mapping constitutes a useful addition to the toolkit of policy analysts. © 2015 UNU-WIDER. Journal of International Development published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inequalities have been exacerbating in the Netherlands since the economic crisis hit ground in 2008, with poverty increasing substantially. The amount of the Dutch population living under the poverty line increased from 7,4 % in 2010 to 10,3 % in 2013. Different types of household are affected: single parent and one-person households, as well as those with migration background. Moreover, life course influences are inherent in the rising amount of children and of elderly in poverty. The aim of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on how new inequalities impact the consumption of food, housing and mobility. Inequalities in food consumption are manifested in the growing amount of food packages handed out by foodbanks increased by 30 % (2012-2013). Housing cost makes up a substantial share of the total expenditure for consumers with lower income and social inequalities become visible in the increasing late payments on mortgages as well as on energy and water consumption. Mobility is of interest, because low-income households appear to cut expenditure on mobility, considering the proportion low-income households spent on mobility is lower as households above the poverty line (7 and 11 % respectively). This paper sheds empirical light on consumption inequalities by providing quantitative empirical evidence. A combination of statistical data is analysed. Life-course influences thereby indicate different peculiarities of consumption inequalities in the types of households affected by poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Concern about the high poverty rates experienced by children in female-headed households has led to policies aimed at increasing these households' income. In this paper we present a model that analyses decisions made before and during marriage to invest in the human capital of parents and children. These decisions result from a variety of anticipated post-divorce monetary transfers between spouses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Luxembourg Income Study (now known as LIS) provides public access for research purposes to harmonized unit-record data sets for multiple countries, in addition to providing summary statistics from those data, including poverty and inequality measures. LIS is a well-managed and undeniably important global public institution for research on inequality and social policy in rich countries. However, LIS's eligibility criteria, country coverage, timeliness and some of its measurement practices limit its usefulness for many other purposes. The paper identifies a number of issues that would need to be addressed by a truly global micro-data base for studying poverty and inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The poverty scorecard and the Poverty Assessment Tool (PAT) are two simple, low-cost ways for local, pro-poor organizations to measure the expenditure-based poverty of their participants and thus to report on (and manage) their social performance. How do the two tools differ? For estimating a group's poverty rate, both are unbiased, and the scorecard has smaller standard errors. For targeting individual households, the PAT correctly classifies about one more household per 100. The scorecard has had greater up-take due to its edge in availability, recentness, and transparency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty remains an essential global issue, despite the global and domestic initiatives undertaken by governments and international agencies. Pakistan, being a developing country, has been facing the severity of poverty. In an attempt to alleviate poverty in Pakistan, financial resources are provided by microfinance institutions to poor and vulnerable people. In this paper, we use logit model to study to get insight of the available data. Logit regression model indicates that zakat institution have significance contribution in poverty reduction while Benazir income support program has nonsignificance contribution. However, Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal has shown positive impact in poverty reduction with particular reference to working male member. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate middle-class poverty politics in Seattle and Buenos Aires in a period of recovery from deep neoliberal economic crisis. Reading these cases in relation to one another allows us to examine what sorts of class subjects emerge in the US, which is theorized as remaining deeply entrenched in neoliberal governance and Argentina, conceptualized as postneoliberal. We investigate the poverty politics of middle-class residents engaged in anti- or pro-poor activism against homeless encampments or squatter settlements in urban neighborhoods. Rooted in relational poverty theory, we conceptualize these forms of activism as relational practices through which class subjectivities are reiterated or challenged through interactions across class lines. Specifically, we examine (i) how middle-class actors frame their differences or alliances with poorer residents and (ii) how these framings of middle-class selves and poorer others are expressed in poverty politics and cross-class antagonisms or alliances. Our analysis reveals poverty as a key site for the making of middle-class actors as individualized, aspirational, normative subjects in both countries. And yet the poverty politics of middle-class actors is not a foregone conclusion because cross-class alliances do arise, pointing toward the potential for alternative readings of class difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fuzzy conceptualization of privation has been a step closer to more realistic handling of poverty. However, fuzzy approaches to poverty are still grounded on parametric axioms. Moreover, construction of poverty lines within these approaches still relies on ad-hoc methods. In this paper, we advance instead a fuzzy procedure based on the non-parametric bootstrap method, allowing us to depict fuzzy unidimensional privation states with boundaries drawn spontaneously from data. Fuzzy non-parametric measures of privation within each state as well as a collective fuzzy non-parametric index of poverty are derived, along with their corresponding confidence intervals. The new approach is applied to the analysis of poverty in Tunisia in 2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines poverty dynamics in Turkey using a nationally representative panel data covering the 2005-08 period. The aim is to understand mobility in and out of poverty and its correlates. We find that almost a quarter of the poor are persistently poor. The conditional and unconditional exit rates that we estimate are within the range of values reported for developed countries in the literature. That the income events-but not transfers-dominate both poverty entries and exits is indicative of the major role labor markets play in the lives of the poor. In particular, we argue that given the characteristics of the poor and modest levels of social assistance, the reason for mobility rates close to European averages must be sought in the informal economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using census data, we analyse inequality and poverty levels for the coal-rich region of Latrobe Valley between 1986 and 2006, a period incorporating industry restructuring, recession and subsequent growth. To enable the analysis using limited information, we propose a method for using grouped data to obtain income distributions for small areas. Unit record data are used to validate the methodology. We find that welfare in the region deteriorated between 1986 and 1996, in line with national and regional trends. However, between 1996 and 2006, when the national economy grew strongly and many regions started to prosper again, welfare in the Valley continued to deteriorate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vulnerability to poverty refers to the risk of an individual or household falling below the poverty line. A partial vulnerability to poverty ordering is defined to indicate when a situation characterized by uncertainty means that people are more vulnerable to poverty than in another situation. The family of expected poverty indices used in this context contains versions under vulnerability of many well-known poverty indices. The ordering resembles the Hardy et al. result on the Lorenz partial ordering. A separate ordering for the expected income gap ratio is also investigated. First-order stochastic dominance is used to indicate when the expected value of the censored returns from the states increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2011, the Census Bureau released its first report on the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). The SPM addresses many criticisms of the official poverty measure, and its intent is to provide an improved statistical picture of poverty. This article examines the extent of poverty identified by the two measures. First, we look at how the SPM and official-measure poverty estimates differ for various demographic and socioeconomic groups. One finding is that the SPM poverty rate is lower than the official poverty rate for each age subgroup of children (0-5, 6-11, and 12-17) by 5.2, 5.3, and 2.2 percentage points, respectively. Then, we look at why the SPM poverty rates for children are lower than the official poverty rates. An important factor here is the difference in treatment of the earned income tax credit and other refundable tax credits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the study that determined why income inequality in Germany remains high, the increase in at-risk-of-poverty rate for young single people and for those starting in their careers, and relative income poverty and material deprivation. Topics discussed include analysis of labor and capital in functional income distribution, high inequality in household disposable income, and stagnation of at-risk-of-poverty rate at about 14 percent.

This study considers the effect of household cigarette expenditure on food poverty indicators in Tanzania. We first compare expenditure patterns as well as the household size of non-smokers and smokers. We find that the majority of non-smokers and smokers have low incomes, and that the mean total per capita expenditure (proxy for income) of non-smokers is slightly higher than those of smokers. On the other hand, the mean household size of non-smokers was smaller compared to that of smokers suggesting that smokers should have spent more on food. Next, we estimate and compare daily calorie intake between both groups. Almost 19 percent of non-smokers were found to be below the poverty line. The corresponding value for smokers was almost 24 percent. Estimates from a multiple linear regression on the determinants of per capita daily calorie intake reveal that per capita cigarette consumption appears to negatively affect daily calorie intake significantly. Given that the majority of all respondents belong to a low income group, this suggests that expenditure on cigarettes may be at the expense of calorie intake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is there a greater moral stain on America than its high child poverty rate? This author derives seven lessons from a summer conference on child poverty that we should all know. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Poverty has remained largely unabated in Nigeria despite the efforts made in tackling it. Previous studies on poverty focused on total expenditure and did not adequately cater for regional differences in prices, needs, tastes and preferences. This study, therefore, examined the incidence, depth and severity of food poverty in Nigeria and produced a food poverty profile for the country based on zone-specific food poverty lines. The study used data from National Bureau of Statistics' Nigeria Living Standard Survey, 2004. Linear programming technique in the spirit of the Food- Energy-Intake (FEI) approach, and the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) index were utilized. The estimates of the study showed, among other things, that food poverty lines varied across zones, and food poverty was pervasive in the country and varied across zones. Thus policies and programs that will adequately increase people's access to food and minimize the incidence of food poverty in Nigeria should be adopted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Pakistan, poverty is mainly a rural phenomenon. Though poverty exists in urban areas also but rural poverty presents a bleak picture. Rural poverty varies from region to region, from one administrative division to other division. In the history of Pakistan the persistent increase in rural poverty with few exceptions, provide enough material and raise numbers of questions in the mind of researcher. To address the issue of poverty, many of the researchers generally used secondary data to find various dimensions of poverty across regions and provinces and at the country level. In this regard very little attention was given to economically analyze the factors affecting rural poverty at divisional and district levels. The present research endeavour aimed at finding out the incidence, depth and severity of rural poverty in Punjab province. The data source for regression analysis was retrieved from Household Integrated Economic Survey (HIES) for the years 2004-05 and 2007-08. Logit regression model was used to gauge and find out over time changes in poverty profile in rural areas of Punjab. The estimations of incidence of poverty in Punjab in the years 2004-05 and 2007-08 were 28.6 and 19.4 percent respectively. The decrease in poverty was attributed to the better economic policies of the government and the execution of development projects in the rural area particularly in the infrastructure sector. The need based development interventions keeping in view the specific measures for specific region can go a long way in alleviating poverty in rural areas of the province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Çankırı Karatekin University Journal of the Faculty of Economics & Administrative Sciences is the property of Cankiri Karatekin University, Faculty of Economics & Administrative Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

African poverty statistics depend on household-level measurements from survey data, making the definition of household of critical importance. Detailed case studies from Tanzania and Burkina Faso explore (1) understandings of household membership and ambiguities, and (2) how well survey definitions capture households as economic units, and the implications for household size and responses to and mitigation of poverty. We develop an analytic framework of ‘open’ and ‘closed’ households. ‘Open’ households cope with poverty using flexibility, movement and extra-household networks, but are poorly represented by survey data. Closed households are likely to be better described by survey data. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using the 2006 round of the British Household Panel Study dataset, I explore the statistical behavior of three fuzzy measures of poverty through a simulation (Monte Carlo) method. The measures [totally fuzzy (TF), totally fuzzy and relative (TFR), and integrated fuzzy and relative (IFR)] acknowledge that (1) poverty is a multidimensional concept, and (2) the 'poor' and 'non-poor' are not two mutually exclusive sets and the distinction can be 'fuzzy'. I find that the sampling distributions of the fuzzy measures are quite normally distributed, and they are robust to arbitrary choice in the estimation as well as reliable with relatively small sample size, though there is some differences between the methods. Also, I show that they are robust to measurement errors: allowing random measurement errors in all indicators, the measures still yield strongly reliable results. Finally, I investigate the identification performance of each measure and show that IFR measure has strong consistency, while both TF and TFR measures significantly underestimate the number of people whose fuzzy index values are very high. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty in Hong Kong is high and rising. This has given rise to community concern and put the government under pressure. It responded by establishing a Commission on Poverty in 2012, which announced in 2013 that it had reached agreement on an official poverty line for Hong Kong - a decision that has since been endorsed by the government. This paper describes how the poverty line is constructed and summarises the key findings in a new report on poverty in Hong Kong. It highlights existing policy failings and examines the implications for policy reform and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of poverty in Russia is analyzed in terms of “deprivation poverty” and “income poverty” in connection with problems of the multifaceted nature of the country's economy. The article examines the structural preconditions of poverty in Russia. It offers assessments of the different types of poverty (preindustrial, industrial, and postindustrial) and recommendations on how to combat poverty, taking into account the characteristics of each type. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article proposes a new approach to the analysis of poverty. Along with the criterion of poverty that is linked to people's incomes the authors propose to include criteria based on the analysis of people's deprivations. Formally their incomes may be higher than the subsistence minimum, but their actual situation in life may put them in a difficult position. The new approach to the problem of poverty dictates the need to change the priorities of state social policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Hunger and starvation are the main challenge of the humanity and the main enemy of the progress, pace and human stability. This is why all the partners of United Nation are conscious about an urgent engagement as in political program and in the compilation of a concrete plan to grow-up effectively the war against this negative phenomenon, that is present in the time we are living. Based on the FAO and Feeding Word Program figures, Albania ranks among the states who do not suffer from hunger. However is the lowest income state in Europe. The transit process highlighted the negative potential effects on the inequality standard of living. Most part of the inequality standard of living in the transition economy touch the decrease of the guarantee employment, and inexpert employee. Although from our point of view, the disparity increase is being a social problem every day bigger for the region ECA society, and this is germane with the social cohesion and the mean government. There is little difference as far as the expenditure food structure among zone is concerned, this talks about a unique structure of the food tradition in Albania. Differences among zones exists on the income level for capital and on the exception of the social levels among zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the compilation of social statistics of the Arab society by the Statistics Division of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia region which focuses on the issue of population, education, and poverty.

ABSTRACT.This article evaluates the results of decade-interval forecasts of California state poverty for 11 demographic segments, based upon smoothed projections of polynomial regression models. The forecasts are compared to current data from the American Community Survey (ACS), where the ACS has replaced both the Decennial Census long forms and the Current Population Surveys for officially estimating poverty. The results indicate that the smoothed curvilinear decade forecasts of demographic state poverty were very accurate. Consequently, similar time-trended changes can be employed in other studies—but with appropriate caution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poor literacy achievement among English learners has contributed significantly to their high dropout rates, poor job prospects, and high poverty rates. The National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth has suggested that English learners benefit from the same direct, systematic instruction in the five essential components of reading shown effective for native-English-speaking students: phonemic awareness, phonics, oral reading fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Implementing effective reading instructional practices for English learners may reduce the literacy achievement gap between English learners and native English speakers. In this study, we used multiple regression to examine data for 1,376 third-grade Latino English learners to determine the strength of oral English proficiency, oral reading fluency, and academic vocabulary knowledge as predictors of reading comprehension proficiency. Findings of this study indicate a mismatch between English learners' instructional needs and a widely used reading program component, assessment of words correct per minute (as a measure of oral reading fluency). Significant conclusions of this study suggest that educators seeking to promote the reading comprehension proficiency of Latino English learners consider using words correct per minute assessments and activities cautiously and strive to allocate more time for instruction and assessment of the prosodic dimension of oral reading fluency and academic vocabulary knowledge and skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine differences in income within the United States, and the regions of persistent poverty that have arisen, using a newly assembled county-level data set linking 19th century Census data with contemporary data. We identify the roles of current differences in aggregate production technologies and factor endowments, together with contributions of historical institutions, culture, geography, and human capital. We allow for possible cross-county factor mobility via a correlated random effects GMM estimator and find evidence of significant regional differences in production technologies. Our decompositions of the poor/nonpoor income gap suggest that at least three-fourths of the gap is explained by differences in productive factors. Persistently poor counties are different (and poorer) primarily because they have lower levels of factors of production, not because they use the factors they have less efficiently. Together, historical and contemporary human capital explain over half of the overall income gap between persistently poor and nonpoor counties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to present an application of multivariate raking ratio adjustment with some refinements. Specifically, we applied raking to help improve the measurement of poverty in Armenia. This work was undertaken in conjunction with a Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) 2006 grant to reduce rural poverty in Armenia through economic growth. The Armenian Integrated Living Conditions Survey (ILCS) was used to measure poverty, so that the impact of the MCC grant could be assessed. We used raking techniques to adjust survey sampling weights so that totals match that of Armenian census projections. This adjustment required the incorporation of a refinement to the standard raking procedure to adjust multiple demographic dimensions: by person-level variables age and gender, and household-level geography variables. This paper describes the application of raking in this context, and provides background on the MCC work in Armenia. We contend that the work done here was a success because of its collaborative nature, which is leading to a fully sustainable effort long-term. Collaborative work of this type, across cultures and, indeed, across the world is rewarding, both professionally and personally. It never ceases to amaze how much official statisticians have in common, wherever they are found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to fill a gap in the current literature by examining the significance of Bolsa Família's effect on poverty at the state level, the process of enforcement and enlargement of Bolsa Família, and the function of municipalities in attaining its success. The findings of this study have implications for the advance and fulfillment of Bolsa Família, the consequences of its program on school performance and attendance, and its role in altering the Brazilian poverty and disparity landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have recently shown that the majority of patients undergoing fundoplication in the United States are women. Based on these findings, we hypothesized that nonbiological factors contribute to the decisions on surgical reflux therapy. Using State Inpatient Databases of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, we extracted annual fundoplication rates, sex distribution, age cohorts, racial background, and insurance coverage. To account for potential differences in state populations, the results were normalized and correlated with Census data, adult obesity rates, median income, poverty rates, and physician workforce within the state. Fundoplication rates varied fivefold between states, ranging from 4.1 ± 0.1 per 100 000 in New Jersey to 21.8 ± 0.4 per 100 000 in Oregon. Higher poverty rates and a higher fraction of Caucasians within a state independently predicted higher fundoplication rates. While the majority of operations were performed laparoscopically, surgical approaches also differed between states with rates of laparoscopic ranging from 52.3 ± 1.8% in Oklahoma to 87.4 ± 1.7% in Hawaii. A lower number of pediatric and Medicaid-insured patient and a higher fraction of privately insured patients best predicted higher rates of laparoscopic surgery. Our study shows significant regional variation in surgical reflux management, which cannot be explained by differences in disease mechanisms. Insurance coverage and racial background influenced the likelihood of surgery, suggesting a role of financial incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we discuss two methods commonly used in the literature to measure chronic poverty, the permanent income approach (where the chronically poor are those whose mean income over time is below the poverty line) and the spells approach (where the chronically poor are those households who are below the poverty line half of the time or more). We check the differences between these two methods considering also several household characteristics. The index we use is that of Foster, Greer and Thorbecke, FGT, with and. When each method identifies the chronically poor (which could be different individuals by each method) and shows the percentage of the chronically poor, while when the methods also take into account the depth of poverty. Our main goal is to show the differences between the two methods, so that policymakers would have different perspectives on the problem of chronic poverty and could make decisions on this basis. The results show that, in the data used, the permanent method and the spells method classify the households into chronically poor and nonchronically poor definitions almost similarly in some cases. Thus, when measuring chronic poverty using the FGT index with , the levels of chronic poverty measured by the two methods are quite the same for the whole population as well as for subgroups of the population. Nevertheless, when using the FGT index with , the permanent method and the spells method give different results, as they take into account the depth of poverty differently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A qualitative techniques of poverty estimation is needed to better implement, monitor and determine national areas where support is most required. The problem of small area estimation (SAE) is the production of reliable estimates in areas with small samples. The precision of estimates in strata deteriorates (i.e. the precision decreases when the standard deviation increases), if the sample size is smaller. In these cases traditional direct estimators may be not precise and therefore pointless. Currently there are many indirect methods for SAE. The purpose of this paper is to analyze several different types of techniques which produce small area estimates of poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]