Zimbabwe has been in macroeconomic doldrums for a long time with the struggle still persisting. To date no single economic indicator points to the stability path, hence calling for proper policy stance to be adopted. For the current year, 2020, a world pandemic has emerged with possible serious...

A model is developed for peasant households in land abundant areas who choose between two technologies for land preparation: a manual one and one using draught animals. For draught a minimum number of animals is required so that a technological non convexity exists. It follows that certain...

This paper shows how distance functions, a tool typically employed in production economics to measure the distance between a set of inputs and a set of outputs, can be employed to approximate a composite measure encompassing the many dimensions of well-being. It also illustrates how to implement...

This paper shows how distance functions, a tool typically employed in production economics to measure the distance between a set of inputs and a set of outputs, can be employed to approximate a composite measure encompassing the many dimensions of well-being. It also illustrates how to implement...

While household well-being derives from long-term average rates of consumption, welfare comparisons typically rely on shorter-duration survey measurements. We develop a new strategy to identify the distribution of these long-term rates by leveraging a large-scale randomization in Iraq that...

The COVID-19 crisis has led to substantial reductions in earnings. We propose a new measure of financial vulnerability, computable through survey data, to determine whether households can withstand a certain income shock for a defined period of time. Using data from the ECB Household Finance and...

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the approaches to poverty based on income and wealth that have been proposed in the literature. Two types of approaches are considered: those that look at income and wealth separately when defining the poverty frontier, and those in which these two...

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the approaches to poverty based on income and wealth that have been proposed in the literature. Two types of approaches are considered: those that look at income and wealth separately when defining the poverty frontier, and those in which these two...

The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals calls for the elimination of many global challenges related to poverty. The first Sustainable Development Goal – the elimination of poverty – targets the challenges faced by the more than 700 million people who live on less...

In Canada, poverty policy and discourse focuses on annual estimates of low income. Assuming that assets, independent from income, represent an alternative view of well-being we introduce an asset-based measurement of poverty for Canada based on (1) financial assets and (2) net worth. A household...