This background paper provides some preliminary estimates of the global incidence of chronic poverty for the Chronic Poverty Report 2004-05. We define chronic poverty as remaining below the poverty line for at least five years, with welfare measured in expenditure or income terms. Using the...

We compare the relationship between net capital inflows, real exchange rate movements and growth for twenty emerging markets and thirteen developed countries over the period 1985-2004. In developed countries low real exchange rates are associated with faster growth, but in emerging markets...

Using data from 1980 to 2004, we show that greater fiscal policy volatility acts as a transmission mechanism for the resource curse. Resource exports dominate political and institutional variables as determinants of fiscal policy volatility, with fiscal policy volatility being a significant...

We investigate the determinants of onset, duration and incidence of civil wars, and their sensitivity to different coding rules. Whatever the coding rule used, incidence of civil war is largely determined by poverty, country size, mountainous terrain and ethnic diversity. Poverty reduces the...