Should public investment be targeted to big cities or to small towns, if the objective is to minimize national poverty? To answer this policy question, this paper extends the basic Todaro-type model of rural-urban migration to the case of migration from rural areas to two potential destinations,...

This paper examines poor households in the city of Mumbai and their exposure, vulnerability, and ability to respond to recurrent floods. The paper discusses policy implications for future adaptive capacity, resilience, and poverty alleviation. The study focuses particularly on the poor...

The central governments of many developing countries have chosen to decentralize their anti-poverty programs, in the expectation that local agents are better informed about local needs. The paper shows that this potential advantage of decentralized eligibility criteria can come at a large cost,...

This paper analyzes poverty in Haiti based on the first Living Conditions Survey of 7,186 households covering the whole country and representative at the regional level. Using a USD1 a day extreme poverty line, the analysis reveals that 49 percent of Haitian households live in absolute poverty....

It is theoretically ambiguous whether growth of cities matters more to the rural poor than growth of towns. This paper empirically examines whether growth of India's secondary towns or big cities mattered more to recent rural poverty reduction, noting that data deficiencies have made this a...

This study presents results from a randomized evaluation of two labor market interventions targeted to young women aged 18 to 19 years in three of Nairobi's poorest neighborhoods. One treatment offered participants a bundled intervention designed to simultaneously relieve credit and human...

This paper provides evidence from eight developing countries of an inverse relationship between poverty and city size. Poverty is both more widespread and deeper in very small and small towns than in large or very large cities. This basic pattern is generally robust to choice of poverty line....

This study looks at the experience of integrated urban upgrading in a low-income neighborhood of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. Infrastructure and social investments have been made in the community through a government program, with community participation playing a major role in the design and...

The objective of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of the extent and nature of poverty in urban areas in transition countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, providing particular attention to the disparities within urban areas between capital cities and...

This paper analyzes poverty in rural and semi-urban areas of Mexico (localities with less than 2,500 and 15,000 inhabitants, respectively) and provides guidance on a social agenda and poverty alleviation strategy for rural Mexico. The analyses are based on INIGH and ENE data sets for 1992-2002....