A growth model is used in the context of Sala-i-Martin’s definition of conditional convergence to assess the household income dynamics in segmented groups at the provincial level in the Philippines. There is a direct relationship between spending efficiency and income growth convergence across income groups. The lower income convergence rate among low income households can be attributed to thei...

This study provides the first set of empirical evidence on the determinants of social benefits received by urban families in China and the impact on income inequality using the China Household Income Project (CHIP) 1988 and 2002 data. It finds that the total urban social benefits strongly targeted the bottom pre-tax pre-transfer income decile. Cash transfers were negatively associated with inco...

BACKGROUND International migration to middle-income countries is increasing and its health consequences, in particular increasing transmission rates of tuberculosis (TB), deserve consideration. Migration and TB are a matter of concern in high-income countries and targeted screening of migrants for active and latent TB infection is a main strategy to manage risk and minimize transmission. In thi...

The forecast consequences of climate change on human health are profound, especially in low- and middle-income countries and among the most disadvantaged populations. Innovative policy tools are needed to address the adverse health effects of climate change. Cash transfers are established policy tools for protecting population health before, during and after climate-related disasters. For examp...

Despite becoming one of China’s fastest expanding and most valuable forest land uses, bamboo’s role in livelihoods and rural development is poorly understood. Detailed quantitative data from 240 households were used to study the contribution of bamboo to household income and rural livelihoods in 12 remote and mountainous villages in southern China. Bamboo was a ubiquitous and highly utilised re...

The size of the Ga-Mampa wetland (1 km), in the Olifants River catchment in South Africa, was halved between 1996 and 2004. This jeopardizes the ecological integrity and influences the benefits people obtain from the wetland. This study therefore analysed the economic values of the provisioning services derived from the Ga-Mampa wetland and evaluated their contribution to the livelihoods of loc...

Progressively targeted cash transfers remain the dominant policy response to chronic poverty in developing countries. But are there alternative social protection policies that might have larger poverty impacts over time for the same public expenditure? To explore this question, this paper develops a dynamic stochastic model of of consumption and asset accumulation by households that confront a ...

This article examines selected benefit characteristics--primary insurance amount, entitlement status, and actuarial reduction--of women aged 62 and over and the relationship between these characteristics and the receipt of income from other sources and the size of total income in 1971. Special attention is given to age variations in beneficiary and income factors and to the comparatively disadv...

We use responses to survey questions in the 2010 Italian Survey of Household Income and Wealth that ask consumers how much of an unexpected transitory income change they would consume. The marginal propensity to consume (MPC) is 48 percent on average. We also find substantial heterogeneity in the distribution, as households with low cash-on-hand exhibit a much higher MPC than affluent household...

The negative income tax experiments were designed to influence political debate on income support policy in at least two ways. One was methodological -to focus the policy debate on a few key empirical questions and produce more definitive evidence than would have been available through nonexperimental methods. Another was political -to legitimize the idea of a universal cash transfer program, s...