There is seemingly no doubt that the Programa Bolsa Família (PBF)has contributed significantly to reducing income inequality among Brazilians during the last decade (Soares, 2012). A product of a timely correlation between the nature of the programme and the nature of regional income...

The increased importance of finance is the main characteristic of the current capitalist system. At the international level, the increase in cross-border financial transactions signals what has been called ?financial globalisation? or ?international financialisation?. The rise of this system is...

This note summarises an editorial article (Babajanian, 2012) of a recent publication by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) (Handayani and Babajanian, 2012), which examines social or noncontributory pensions in Asia. The book is based on contributions from leading international researchers who...

The social pension scheme in Viet Nam was first introduced on 26 March 2000 for people aged 90 years and over who did not receive contributory pensions or other social allowances. The benefit of a minimum of VND45,000 (about $3) per month was first paid out in 2002 and increased to a minimum of...

One Pager No. 219 ? Nepal?s Senior Citizens? Allowance: A Model of Universalism in a Low-income Country Context By Michael Samson, Economic Policy Research Institute Universal social pensions open the door to more expansive social protection in Nepal. The significance of social pensions has...

One Pager No. 216 ? How to Provide Basic Income Security to all Elderly People? By Krzysztof Hagemejer and Valérie Schmitt, International Labour Organization The Social Protection Floors Recommendation adopted in 2012 urges all countries to establish as quickly as possible and maintain floors...

A behavioural analysis of the distributional impacts of tax policy and public spending shows that the Brazilian tax system has remained quite regressive, and, as an innovation, there have been gains, some quite significant, in the progressivity of social spending. While, in 2003, the...

Expected Years of Schooling (EYS) is a measure of the number of years of schooling a child at the start of his/her education trajectory is expected to receive, if current rates of enrolment are maintained throughout the child?s life (UNESCO, 2009). It is one of the components of the education...

A common concern about social protection programmes is that the transfers they provide may create disincentives for work. By raising incomes, transfer payments may encourage households to seek more leisure time and reduce their participation in the labour force or the number of hours worked,...

Both long-term climate change and immediate-term economic crises are bringing the issue of food security into sharper relief, particularly in those Caribbean countries where food security is already volatile and faces a series of risks and challenges. Climate change, in particular, adds urgency...