One of the most interesting ideas in social science is the notion that individuals are motivated by concerns about their relative position. We investigate whether individuals feel worse off when they are socially excluded and also if there are greater degrees of social exclusions among their...

Official poverty statistics and even the extreme poverty literature largely ignore people experiencing homelessness. In this paper, we examine the characteristics, labor market attachment, geographic mobility, earnings, and safety net utilization of this population in order to understand their...

Flexicurity is the combination of more flexibility for employers and more security for workers. It is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that lacks a well-developed monitoring framework or a statistically consistent grouping of the indicators. First, this paper proposes a conceptual framework...

The present study examines trends in employment status in Egypt in an important era of democratic transition. It examines determinants of different labor force participation by gender. The empirical analysis is based on the World Values Survey of the fifth wave (2005-2008). A comparative...

Throughout the world child labour has been an area of lively debate for about a decade with many different viewpoints on the issue. It is argued that in developing countries with poverty, inequality, social norms, credit-land-labour market imperfections, high fertility and unpredictable...

Homelessness is arguably the most extreme hardship associated with poverty in the United States, yet people experiencing homelessness are excluded from official poverty statistics and much of the extreme poverty literature. This paper provides the most detailed and accurate portrait to date of...

Rapid urbanization is a fact of live even in the least developed countries (LDCs) where the lion’s share of the population presently lives in rural areas and will continue to do so for decades to come. At the turn of the millennium 75% of the LDCs’ population still lived in rural areas and...

This paper argues that making affordable home mortgage loans available to a large cross section of the population will serve both the redistributive and growth-enhancing objectives of poverty reduction policies. The current state of housing and mortgage markets in selected Middle East and North...

Despite over three decades of Liberalisation policies in Africa, income-inequality has stayed persistently high. Using updated panel data of 26 African countries spanning the period 1996-2010, this study examines the effect of liberalisation policies with particular focus on financial, trade,...

Are formal institutions instrumental in the effect globalization mechanisms have on the human face? If so, through which freedoms channels are poverty and inequality mitigated? With the instrumentality of formal institutions: (1) de jure financial liberalization (KAOPEN) has a positive...