We analyze the performance of kernel density methods applied to grouped data to estimate poverty (as applied in Sala-i-Martin, 2006, QJE). Using Monte Carlo simulations and household surveys, we find that the technique gives rise to biases in poverty estimates, the sign and magnitude of which...

We argue that inter-country comparisons of income poverty based on poverty lines uniformly reflecting the costs of the basic requirements of human beings are superior to the existing money-metric approaches. In this exercise, we implement a uniform approach to income poverty assessment based on...

We analyze the growth impact of official development assistance to developing countries. Our approach is different from that of previous studies in two major ways. First, we disentangle the effects of two kinds of aid: developmental and non-developmental. Second, our specifications allow for the...

In previous work Reddy and Pogge have argued that inter-country comparisons of income poverty based on poverty lines uniformly re?ecting the costs of the basic requirements of human beings are superior to the existing money-metric approaches. In this exercise, we implement a uniform approach to...

The recent revision of the World Bank’s global poverty estimates based on a new $1.25 (2005 PPP) poverty line underlines their unreliability and lack of meaningfulness. It is very difficult to justify various aspects of the Bank’s approach. In the short term, less weight should be given to...

Recent influential studies among development economists claim that aid to developing countries is not nearly as beneficial to recipient nations as had been expected. Are these statistical analyses right? One problem is that total aid, on which most studies are based, includes two distinct kinds...

The World Bank recently revised its poverty threshold upward by 25 percent. The new definition of being poor is now anyone who lives on the equivalent of what $1.25 a day buys in the United States, up from a mere dollar. But that adds some 400 million people to the poverty rolls in the world....

This paper examines the phenomenon of real-income stagnation (in which real-income growth is uninterruptedly negligible or negative for a sizable sequence of years). We analyse data for four decades from a large cross-section of countries. Real income stagnation is a conceptually distinct...

Advocates or analysts of human rights and mainstream economists can find it difficult to communicate, let alone to arrive at agreement—when they communicate at all. Why is their dialogue non-existent or vexed? This paper identifies three deep-seated conceptual reasons. An improved dialogue can...