This paper argues that the assumption of a homogeneous workforce, which is implicitly invoked in the decomposition analysis of changes in welfare indicators, hides the role that schooling and its returns may have on the understanding of these changes. Using Peruvian cross-sectional data for a...

Often development focus has been on measuring and analyzing poverty in order to reduce poverty. While the poor face future prospects of being perpetually trapped in poverty, the nonpoor also are vulnerable to poverty. Vulnerability has been particularly recognized in the wake of the impact of...

What are the consequences of the trend towards more flexibilized temporary employment for income inequality? This paper reassesses the crucial assumption behind the politics of dualization that reforms targeted at outsiders do not undermine the position of labor market insiders. Instead, I argue...

Tajikistan was one of the fastest growing countries in the Europe and Central Asia region during the last decade. The economic growth was widely shared by the population and as a result poverty (measured by the national poverty line) declined from 73 percent in 2003 to 47 percent in 2009...

This paper joins in the debate on the size of the middle class in Latin America, providing an analysis of its structure and characteristics. Using several measurements, it finds that 40-60 percent of Latin American households are middle class, a share which has consolidated over the past decade....

This paper examines the evolution of the breadth and target of social policy in the US. By analyzing LIS household data from the US, the paper brings fresh evidence to longstanding debates over how inequality influences income redistribution, whether a welfare retrenchment has occurred, and...