We consider a situation where the relatively ‘poor’ are concerned about their relative income status with respect to a relevant reference group. Such a concern is explicitly introduced in a utility function to study the consumption and saving behavior of the poor in terms of a static and...

The existing literature on poverty has discussed about the conflict between income-based measure and nutrition-based measure. However, the role of social inequality in influencing individual’s consumption and inducing greater consumption of the so called status good has been relatively...

The conflict between the income based and nutrition based estimates of poverty is a widely debated issue in economic literature. This paper, using a two commodity framework, attempts to show that in presence of inequality, a status driven utility function can reconcile the conflict between the...

Since 2003, Guinea has been affected by a deep economic crisis that has contributed to exacerbating already high levels of poverty. This paper documents poverty trends in Guinea using the last three household surveys available, implemented in 1994/95, 2002/03, and 2007. The estimates suggest...

To help prepare Liberia’s poverty reduction strategy, a CWIQ (Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire) household survey was conducted by the Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Informational Services. This article is based on an analysis of this survey to estimate the level of poverty and...

This article analyses the evolution of poverty and living conditions in Senegal using household surveys conducted over 2005-2009 within the context of the country’s efforts to achieve by 2015 the targets set forth under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The article was prepared as part...

In presence of inequality a status driven utility function reconciles the conflict between income based and nutrition based measures of poverty. Moreover, it can explain why the poor tend to save less, an established empirical fact in the developing countries. The result is independent of the...

The purpose of this paper is to propose a model where trade has a direct and positive impact on growth rate of two trading nations beyond the level effect. We use the idea of virtual trade in intermediates induced by non- overlapping time zones and show how trade can increase the equilibrium...

We propose a two-country growth model of intermediate business-services trade that captures the role of time zone differences. It is shown that a time-saving improvement in intermediate business-services trade involving production in different time zones can have a permanent impact on productivity.