A recent "Update" from the World Bank has caused widespread media celebrations of "drastic" progress against poverty in the 2005-10 period. But no such progress is visible in the data on undernutrition provided by the FAO. This paper discusses the discrepancy and, more broadly, better ways of...

Proposals for incorporating information on the quality of human, social, and environmental conditions in more authentic and comprehensive versions of the Gross National Product (GNP) or Gross Domestic Product (GDP) date back to the foundations of econometrics.Typically treated as external to...

This paper investigates the effect of firm-level investment on the levels of income inequality and poverty. Using a sample of firms from 87 countries for the period from 1979 to 2018, we document that firm-level investment is negatively associated with various measures of income inequality. This...

Proposals for incorporating information on the quality of human, social, and environmental conditions in more authentic and comprehensive versions of the Gross National Product (GNP) or Gross Domestic Product (GDP) date back to the foundations of econometrics. Typically treated as external to...

In many countries extreme poverty is unnecessary. Yet it persists. We propose a simple index, denoted the Miser index, to measure the extent to which societies have poverty in the midst of affluence. It builds on the generalized Lorenz curve, but can also be seen as a measure of polarization...

Analysing a large sample of 1980 - 2004 unbalanced panel data, the current study presents comparative global evidence on the role of (income) inequality in poverty reduction. The evidence involves both an indirect channel via the tendency of high inequality to decrease the rate at which income...

We explore the relationships between subjective well-being and income, as seen across individuals within a given country, between countries in a given year, and as a country grows through time. We show that richer individuals in a given country are more satisfied with their lives than are poorer...

The Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) has been widely used to analyze climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation. The storylines behind these scenarios outline alternative development pathways, which have been the base for climate research and other studies at global,...

We explore the relationships between subjective well-being and income, as seen across individuals within a given country, between countries in a given year, and as a country grows through time. We show that richer individuals in a given country are more satisfied with their lives than are poorer...