An importexceeds a "normal" level. This paper identifies various internal and external factors that can contribute to the emergence of agricultural import surges in developing countries and discusses their relevance. External factors play a rather minor role. Internal policies, whether carried...

The Lisbon summit of the European Council in March 2000 declared the number ofpeople living in poverty and social exclusion in the European Union to beunacceptable, and called for steps to tackle the issue, beginning with the setting oftargets for particular indicators. The targets suggested...

The concept of social exclusion has been widely debated in Europe butits application to children has seen relatively little discussion. What couldbe meant by exclusion of children is the first main theme of the paper.Among other things, I consider the choice of reference group, thegeographical...

[...]This paper, and its companion, Definition of equality and framework formeasurement: Final Recommendations of the Equalities Review SteeringGroup on Measurement (CASEpaper 120) were prepared as backgroundpapers to assist in the development of the measurement framework for theEqualities...

[...]This paper, and its companion, Developing a Capability List: FinalRecommendations of the Equalities Review Steering Group on Measurement(CASEpaper 121), were prepared as background papers to assist in thedevelopment of the measurement framework for the Equalities Review. Itdiscusses the...

The Equalities Review is an independent panel set up by the UK government in2005 to investigate the persistence of social inequalities and to makerecommendations for the development of a unified Commission for Equalityand Human Rights. This paper was originally written for the Review....

We describe Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach to welfare evaluationin the language of standard welfare economics, and assess to what extentit provides a genuine alternative for individual welfare measurement andpolicy evaluation. We review the nascent empirical literature on the...

Equivalisation of incomes for household size and composition is acceptedpractice when measuring poverty and inequality; adjustments to take account ofother variations in needs are rarely made. This paper explores the financialimplications of one possible source of additional needs: disability....

The paper analyses changes in poverty in Britain since 1997. A povertylevel of 60 percent of median equivalised income is used. The first partexamines the changes that occurred between 1996/7 and 2000/1 asshown by the Family Resources Survey, on which government estimatesof Households Below...

The Polish tax and benefit system is presented in the context of a recently developedmicrosimulation model, SIMPL. The model allows simulating direct taxes, social contributionsand public benefits in Poland for the years 2003 and 2005...>br>