This paper analyses levels of low literacy across twelve countries using the International Adult Literacy Survey. We go beyond existing work that only looks at the proportions below certain critical levels of literacy. Using methods developed for the measurement of poverty we calculate measures...

This study develops a framework to investigate the optimal allocation of a country's fiscal resources to help equalize opportunities for human development. The author argues that the proper role for policy is the pursuit of equality of opportunities as opposed to equality of outcomes. Because...

This paper joins in the debate on the size of the middle class in Latin America, providing an analysis of its structure and characteristics. Using several measurements, it finds that 40-60 percent of Latin American households are middle class, a share which has consolidated over the past decade....

Of the world’s 6.7 billion people (as of 2008), 1.3 billion lived on less than $1.25 Purchasing Power Parity dollars per person per day and another 1.7 billion lived on between $1.25 and $2.50 PPP dollars (Chen and Ravallion, 2012). The scourge of absolute economic misery among billions of the...

L Indice Globale della Fame 2013 (GHI), relativo ai dati del periodo 2008-2012, mostra che la fame mondiale e diminuita di un terzo rispetto al 1990. Nonostante i progressi, il livello della fame nel mondo rimane "grave", con 870 milioni di persone a soffrirne, secondo le stime...

The 2013 Global Hunger Index (GHI), which reflects data from the period 2008 to 2012, shows that global hunger has improved since 1990, falling by one-third. Despite the progress made, the level of hunger in the world remains serious, with 870 million people going hungry, according to estimates...

We use data from 52 countries on child stunting, poverty, determinants of food security, environmental health, and quality of maternal and child care to carry out a cluster analysis of country typologies. The purpose is to identify where agriculture-led interventions might address binding...

We use multiple measures of agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) change to examine the relationship between agricultural productivity and poverty in developing countries. We employ a stochastic frontier analysis to estimate agricultural TFP changes for 113 countries using output distance...

More than two-thirds of the total population of people with disabilities live in low and middle income countries and are one of the poorest and most marginalized groups in society. However, due to the dearth of data, research on disabilities and poverty is rare. With this paper, we intend to...