We find that the distribution of income matters to aggregate carbon dioxide emissions and hence global warming. Higher inequality, both between and within countries is associated with lower carbon emissions at given average incomes. We also confirm that economic growth generally comes with...

How important are neighborhood endowments of physical and human capital in explaining diverging fortunes over time for otherwise identical households? To answer this question we develop an estimable micro model of consumption growth allowing for constraints on factor mobility and externalities,...

Can place of residence make the difference between growth and contraction in living standards for otherwise identical households? The authors test for the existence of spatial poverty traps, using a micro model of consumption growth incorporating geographic externalities, whereby neighborhood...

The authors study transient poverty in a six-year panel dataset for a sample of 5,000 households in post-reform rural China. Half of the mean squared poverty gap is transient, in that it is directly attributable to fluctuations in consumption over time. There is enough transient poverty to...

Poor-area development programs- in which the government transfers extra resources to unusually poor areas -have been widely used to fight poverty. There has been some research on such programs, but little is known about their impact on household living standards over time. The authors address...