The focus of this paper is on the rural poor of south Asia and their struggle to cope with the seasonal risk of unemployment and the ensuing income risks. In the absence of formal credit or insurance markets the rural poor typically resort to, among other options, the following informal...

This paper compares empirical findings on the motivation and welfare impacts of rural-urban migration from two comprehensive case studies conducted in Thailand and Vietnam. Panel data of around 4,000 rural households and tracking surveys of close to 1,000 migrants are used from the two...

This paper provides a technical description of GEM-PIA, a recursive-dynamic computable General Equilibrium Model for Poverty Impact Analysis in individual countries. The model combines the optimizing behavior of CGE models with the asset portfolio behavior of macromodels, thereby addressing the...

Using unique longitudinal administrative tax panel data for the District of Columbia (DC), we assess the combined effect of the DC supplemental earned income tax credit (EITC) and the federal EITC on poverty and income dynamics within Washington, DC, from 2001 to 2011. The EITC in DC merits...

The main objectives of social assistance benefits, including poverty alleviation and labor-market or social reintegration, can be seriously compromised if support is difficult to access. While recent studies point to high non-take-up rates, existing evidence does not make full use of the...

This study complements the inclusive growth literature by examining the determinants and consequences of the middle class in a continent where economic growth has been relatively high. The empirical evidence is based on a sample of 33 African countries for a 2010 cross-sectional study. OLS,...

This paper studies income poverty among the 50+ population in 10 EU countries using newly collected data from the SHARE (Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe) project. A measure of the household's disposable annual income is used. Relative income poverty range from 10 percent (in...

Over the past 20 years, microsimulation models have come to play an important role in policy analysis, identifying gainers and losers, and characterising the effect on incentives. A natural development of national models is a Europe-wide tax benefit model. The present paper reports results from...

Income poverty in Germany has reached its highest level for twenty years. This statistic is often seen as proof of the existence and growth of a 'decoupled underclass'. In other scenarios large sections of society appear to be facing collapse into poverty. If the duration of individual phases of...

The proportion of middle income earners in Germany has shrunk significantly in recent years: from 62 percent of the total population in the year 2000 to only 54 percent in 2006. Correspondingly, the proportion of the population at the margins of the income distribution has increased as well,...