1,721,016 research outputs found
Russian unemployment : its magnitude, characteristics, and regional dimensions
Full text linkRegistered unemployment in Russia is now 2 percent; surveys indicate a true rate of between 5 and 6 percent. Until now, flow in and out of unemployment have been quite large, with duration low. This may be changing as the ease with which workers are matched to jobs declines -- in part because of financing constraints on firms. Already there is great regional variation in unemployment -- which, as this model indicates, is likely to persist because of the mismatch in distribtution of jobs and the unemployed.Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Policies,Public Health Promotion,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Labor Markets,Youth and Governance,Work&Working Conditions,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Labor Markets
A Guide to Navigating Concepts, Evidence, and Practices
No full textUniversal basic income (UBI) is emerging as one of the most hotly debated
issues in development and social protection policy. But what are the
features of UBI? What is it meant to achieve? How do we know, and
what don’t we know, about its performance? What does it take to implement
it in practice? Drawing from global evidence, literature, and survey data, this
volume provides a framework to elucidate issues and trade-offs in UBI with a view
to help inform choices around its appropriateness and feasibility in different contexts.
Specifically, the book examines how UBI differs from or complements other
social assistance programs in terms of objectives, coverage, incidence, adequacy,
incentives, effects on poverty and inequality, financing, political economy, and
implementation. It also reviews past and current country experiences, surveys the
full range of existing policy proposals, provides original results from micro–tax benefit
simulations, and sets out a range of considerations around the analytics and
practice of UBI
Living Standards and Economic Vulnerability in Turkey between 1987 and 1994
Full text linkUntil recently, poverty was a relatively unexplored field of studies in Turkey. This is one of the
first attempts outside Turkey to use household survey data from two nationally representative
surveys conducted in 1987 and 1994 to get a picture of poverty and its main driving forces. The
1994 data remain until today the latest household level data available for Turkey. The paper
finds that Turkey does not face a problem of absolute poverty by the standards of a developing
country (in 1994 only 2.5 percent of population lived at less than 1 dollar a day at 1985
purchasing power parity). However, applying a standard that is adequate to Turkey?s level of
development we find that 7 percent of the population were not able to afford a minimum food
basket in 1994 and 36 percent were below the threshold that included alongside minimum food
requirements also essential non-food spending. There was a rather small reduction in the
poverty risk in Turkey between 1987 and 1994, despite an impressive economic growth, - largely
due to negative effects of the macroeconomic crisis of 1996. Poverty in Turkey affects mostly
specific groups of the population. Employment and earnings opportunities are key determinants
of poverty risks. The profile of poverty by labor market characteristics has remained stable in
the 1987-94 period. Macroeconomic and demographic factors (falling fertility and migration from
the poorest rural areas to cities) were the main driving forces behind changes in the number of
poor
Inequality and Income Distribution in Georgia
Full text linkIn the period of macroeconomic crisis in Georgia between 1991 and1994 the combination of
hyperinflation, catastrophic output drop and weak governance, have led to a sharp rise in
inequality among households. Sharp inequities have arisen not only between households, but
also between regions. This paper gives a picture of the main channels of redistribution and of
the main driving forces of income inequality in Georgia, as it emerges from the analysis of the
first representative survey of incomes and expenditures of Georgian households in 1996-1997.
The paper finds that the level of inequality for money income in Georgia is comparable to highest
inequality countries of Latin America (Gini equals 0.6). However, given the degree of
informalization and demonetization of the economy, measuring only reported monetary incomes
gives a somewhat misleading picture of the living standards. The paper argues that consumption
is a much better indicator of welfare, especially in the Georgian context and explores the
relationship between income and consumption in the Georgian context. Using consumption, we
get the picture that is marked by very clear, though, not as striking inequalities (Gini coefficient of
0.36). Growth has not yet had a strong impact on consumption inequality per se, but we find
evidence that during 1996-97 consumption increased at almost all levels of the distribution.
During the same period, there was significant income mobility, except for those at the very
bottom or the very top of the income distribution. For the latter, economic success appears to be
closely associated with labor market status, ownership of productive assets and resulting
earnings opportunities. Georgian economy is generating a system of much inequality. The key
share of inequality can be attributed to informal incomes (using the decomposition analysis as
proposed by Shorrocks). State transfers being reduced to minimum levels do exercise only a
slight positive impact on the overall inequality outcomes
The 1.5 Billion People Question: Food, Vouchers, or Cash Transfers?
No full textMost of the people in low and middle-income countries covered by social protection receive assistance in the form of in-kind food. The origin of such support is rooted in countries’ historical pursuit of three interconnected objectives, namely attaining self-sufficiency in food, managing domestic food prices, and providing income support to the poor.
This volume sheds light on the complex, bumpy and non-linear process of how some flagship food-based social protection programs have evolved over time, and how they currently work. In particular, it lays out the broad trends in reforms, including a growing move from in-kind modalities to cash transfers, from universality to targeting, and from agriculture to social protection. Case studies from Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Sri Lanka, and United States document the specific experiences of managing the process of reform and implementation, including enhancing our understanding of the opportunities and challenges with different social protection transfer modalities
Housing Privatization and Household Wealth in Transition
Full text linkAll countries in transition experienced increases in inequality. They have also undertaken massive privatization of key asset housing, often on give-away terms. Are these two phenomena related? Has transfer of ownership rights to residents slowed down the inequality increases or it pushed it up? Surprisingly little is known in this area. This paper attempts to provide empirical evidence to start answering these questions. It shows how housing privatization affected the distribution of personal wealth and inequality in current consumption based on recent representative household surveys from three transition countries: Poland, Russia and Serbia. Survey data are compared with figures derived from national accounts and housing statistics. Contrary to common belief and some earlier evidence of strong equalizing effect of housing distribution in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the paper finds that the contribution of housing to the overall inequality levels is not strong, and is not universally progressive. There is also a significant variation across countries. In Russia and Serbia ...Russia, inequality, wealth distribution, housing, privatization
Living standards and economic vulnerability in Turkey between 1987 and 1994 / Ruslan Yemtsov
Full text linkUntil recently, poverty was a relatively unexplored field of studies in Turkey. This is one of the first attempts outside Turkey to use household survey data from two nationally representative surveys conducted in 1987 and 1994 to get a picture of poverty and its main driving forces. The 1994 data remain until today the latest household level data available for Turkey. The paper finds that Turkey does not face a problem of absolute poverty by the standards of a developing country (in 1994 only 2.5 percent of population lived at less than 1 dollar a day at 1985 purchasing power parity). However, applying a standard that is adequate to Turkey's level of development we find that 7 percent of the population were not able to afford a minimum food basket in 1994 and 36 percent were below the threshold that included alongside minimum food requirements also essential non-food spending. There was a rather small reduction in the poverty risk in Turkey between 1987 and 1994, despite an impressive economic growth, - largely due to negative effects of the macroeconomic crisis of 1996. Poverty in Turkey affects mostly specific groups of the population. Employment and earnings opportunities are key determinants of poverty risks. The profile of poverty by labor market characteristics has remained stable in the 1987-94 period. Macroeconomic and demographic factors (falling fertility and migration from the poorest rural areas to cities) were the main driving forces behind changes in the number of poor
Quo Vadis? Inequality and Poverty Dynamics across Russian Regions
Full text linkRussia, transition, inequality, poverty, regional economies, convergence
Labor Markets, Inequality and Poverty in Georgia
Full text linkThe labor market is the main channel through which economic growth affects poverty. This
paper is the first empirical account of main channels through which the growth in transition
period has affected labor market and living standards in Georgia. It is based on both the official
aggregate statistics and data from a representative household survey fielded in 1996-1997. The
paper finds that in Georgia the labor market has shown outstanding flexibility during a period of
severe political and economic turmoil in 1992-1995. Despite the catastrophic fall in GDP
employment contracted only marginally. This flexibility has been achieved mainly through the
informalization of employment, and through the reallocation of labor towards small-scale
agriculture. Informalization has dampened the impact of the crisis and served to protect the poor,
stabilizing the poverty rate at the politically and socially acceptable level (around 15% of the
population). However, the informalization limited the impact of market forces favoring human
capital accumulation on the formation of earnings. Today, a large and growing fraction of the
Georgian labor force relies on self-employment as the primary means to earn an income. For
some, this is an avenue for earnings mobility and growth; for the majority, however, selfemployment
remains constrained to low-productivity agricultural or trading activities, with little
earnings stability and little potential for long term earnings growth. Prospects for the future hinge
critically on the economy?s ability to generate new private formal employment, and to reallocate
labor away from these low-productivity activities into higher value added sectors
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