IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/inq/inqwps/ecineq2016-413.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Poverty Accounting. A fractional response approach to poverty decomposition

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Bluhm

    (Leibniz University Hannover, Germany)

  • Denis de Crombrugghe

    (Maastricht University, The Netherlands)

  • Adam Szirmai

    (UNU-MERIT and Maastricht University, The Netherlands)

Abstract

This paper proposes a new empirical framework for poverty accounting. Using a large collection of household surveys from 124 countries, we estimate income and inequality (semi-)elasticities of poverty for the \$2 and \$1.25 a day poverty lines as well as their contributions to poverty alleviation. We show that initial inequality is a strong moderator of the impact of growth and there has been a shift towards more pro-poor growth around the turn of the millennium. We project poverty rates until 2030 and show that an end of extreme poverty within a generation is unlikely.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Bluhm & Denis de Crombrugghe & Adam Szirmai, 2016. "Poverty Accounting. A fractional response approach to poverty decomposition," Working Papers 413, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    • Handle: RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2016-413
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ecineq.org/milano/WP/ECINEQ2016-413.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Caselli, Francesco, 2005. "Accounting for Cross-Country Income Differences," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 9, pages 679-741, Elsevier.
    2. Branko Milanovic, 2002. "True World Income Distribution, 1988 and 1993: First Calculation Based on Household Surveys Alone," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(476), pages 51-92, January.
    3. Easterly, William, 2007. "Inequality does cause underdevelopment: Insights from a new instrument," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 755-776, November.
    4. Francisco H. G. Ferreira & Shaohua Chen & Andrew Dabalen & Yuri Dikhanov & Nada Hamadeh & Dean Jolliffe & Ambar Narayan & Espen Beer Prydz & Ana Revenga & Prem Sangraula & Umar Serajuddin & Nobuo Yosh, 2016. "A global count of the extreme poor in 2012: data issues, methodology and initial results," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 14(2), pages 141-172, June.
    5. Richard W. Blundell & James L. Powell, 2004. "Endogeneity in Semiparametric Binary Response Models," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 71(3), pages 655-679.
    6. Chotikapanich, Duangkamon & Griffiths, William E. & Rao, D. S. Prasada, 2007. "Estimating and Combining National Income Distributions Using Limited Data," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 25, pages 97-109, January.
    7. Martin Ravallion, 2013. "How Long Will It Take to Lift One Billion People Out of Poverty?," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank Group, vol. 28(2), pages 139-158, August.
    8. Hausman, Jerry, 2015. "Specification tests in econometrics," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 38(2), pages 112-134.
    9. Esmeralda A. Ramalho & Joaquim J.S. Ramalho & José M.R. Murteira, 2011. "Alternative Estimating And Testing Empirical Strategies For Fractional Regression Models," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 19-68, February.
    10. Martin Ravallion, 2012. "Why Don't We See Poverty Convergence?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 504-523, February.
    11. Shaohua Chen & Martin Ravallion, 2010. "The Developing World is Poorer than We Thought, But No Less Successful in the Fight Against Poverty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 125(4), pages 1577-1625.
    12. Erich Battistin & Richard Blundell & Arthur Lewbel, 2009. "Why Is Consumption More Log Normal than Income? Gibrat's Law Revisited," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(6), pages 1140-1154, December.
    13. Caselli, Francesco, 2005. "Accounting for cross-country income differences," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 5266, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Dollar, David & Kleineberg, Tatjana & Kraay, Aart, 2016. "Growth still is good for the poor," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 68-85.
    15. Gary A. Hoover & Walter Enders & Donald G. Freeman, 2008. "Non-white Poverty and Macroeconomy: The Impact of Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 398-402, May.
    16. Ravallion, Martin & Chen, Shaohua, 2003. "Measuring pro-poor growth," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 93-99, January.
    17. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong Wha, 2013. "A new data set of educational attainment in the world, 1950–2010," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 184-198.
    18. David Dollar & Tatjana Kleineberg & Aart Kraay, 2015. "Growth, inequality and social welfare: cross-country evidence," Economic Policy, CEPR;CES;MSH, vol. 30(82), pages 335-377.
    19. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    20. Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew Warner, 1995. "Economic Reform and the Process of Global Integration," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(1, 25th A), pages 1-118.
    21. Adams, Richard Jr., 2004. "Economic Growth, Inequality and Poverty: Estimating the Growth Elasticity of Poverty," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(12), pages 1989-2014, December.
    22. Gourieroux, Christian & Monfort, Alain & Trognon, Alain, 1984. "Pseudo Maximum Likelihood Methods: Theory," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 681-700, May.
    23. Andrew Chesher & Christian Schluter, 2002. "Welfare Measurement and Measurement Error," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 69(2), pages 357-378.
    24. Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2006. "The World Distribution of Income: Falling Poverty and … Convergence, Period," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 121(2), pages 351-397.
    25. Romain Wacziarg & Karen Horn Welch, 2008. "Trade Liberalization and Growth: New Evidence," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 22(2), pages 187-231, June.
    26. Shaohua Chen & Martin Ravallion, 2004. "How Have the World's Poorest Fared since the Early 1980s?," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank Group, vol. 19(2), pages 141-169.
    27. Barry Eichengreen & Donghyun Park & Kwanho Shin, 2013. "Growth Slowdowns Redux: New Evidence on the Middle-Income Trap," NBER Working Papers 18673, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    28. Jesus Crespo Cuaresma & Stephan Klasen & Konstantin M. Wacker, 2016. "There is poverty convergence," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp213, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    29. Angus Deaton & Alan Heston, 2010. "Understanding PPPs and PPP-Based National Accounts," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 1-35, October.
    30. Melanie Krause, 2014. "Parametric Lorenz Curves and the Modality of the Income Density Function," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(4), pages 905-929, December.
    31. Martin Ravallion, 2016. "Toward better global poverty measures," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 14(2), pages 227-248, June.
    32. Misselhorn, Mark & Klasen, Stephan, 2006. "Determinants of the Growth Semi-Elasticity of Poverty Reduction," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Berlin 2006 15, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    33. David Dollar & Aart Kraay, 2004. "Trade, Growth, and Poverty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(493), pages 22-49, February.
    34. Dustin Chambers & Shatakshee Dhongde, 2011. "A Non‐Parametric Measure Of Poverty Elasticity," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 57(4), pages 683-703, December.
    35. Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2010. "Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262232588, December.
    36. Datt, Gaurav & Ravallion, Martin, 1992. "Growth and redistribution components of changes in poverty measures : A decomposition with applications to Brazil and India in the 1980s," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 275-295, April.
    37. Ravallion, Martin & Chen, Shaohua, 1997. "What Can New Survey Data Tell Us about Recent Changes in Distribution and Poverty?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 11(2), pages 357-382, May.
    38. Dollar, David & Kraay, Aart, 2002. "Growth Is Good for the Poor," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 195-225, September.
    39. Florent Bresson, 2009. "On The Estimation Of Growth And Inequality Elasticities Of Poverty With Grouped Data," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 55(2), pages 266-302, June.
    40. Papke, Leslie E. & Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 2008. "Panel data methods for fractional response variables with an application to test pass rates," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 145(1-2), pages 121-133, July.
    41. Joseph G. Altonji & Rosa L. Matzkin, 2005. "Cross Section and Panel Data Estimators for Nonseparable Models with Endogenous Regressors," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(4), pages 1053-1102, July.
    42. Ravallion, Martin, 2001. "Growth, Inequality and Poverty: Looking Beyond Averages," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(11), pages 1803-1815, November.
    43. Young, Alwyn, 2011. "The Gini coefficient for a mixture of Ln-Normal populations," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 54246, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    44. Anthony Shorrocks, 2013. "Decomposition procedures for distributional analysis: a unified framework based on the Shapley value," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 11(1), pages 99-126, March.
    45. J. M. C. Santos Silva & Silvana Tenreyro, 2006. "The Log of Gravity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 641-658, November.
    46. Kalwij, Adriaan & Verschoor, Arjan, 2007. "Not by growth alone: The role of the distribution of income in regional diversity in poverty reduction," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 805-829, May.
    47. Thorsten Beck & Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Ross Levine, 2010. "Financial Institutions and Markets across Countries and over Time: The Updated Financial Development and Structure Database," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 24(1), pages 77-92, January.
    48. Kraay, Aart, 2006. "When is growth pro-poor? Evidence from a panel of countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 198-227, June.
    49. Rivers, Douglas & Vuong, Quang H., 1988. "Limited information estimators and exogeneity tests for simultaneous probit models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 347-366, November.
    50. Timothy Besley & Robin Burgess, 2003. "Halving Global Poverty," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 3-22, Summer.
    51. Gourieroux, Christian & Monfort, Alain & Trognon, Alain, 1984. "Pseudo Maximum Likelihood Methods: Applications to Poisson Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 701-720, May.
    52. Mundlak, Yair, 1978. "On the Pooling of Time Series and Cross Section Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 69-85, January.
    53. Kakwani, Nanak, 1993. "Poverty and Economic Growth with Application to Cote d'Ivoire," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 39(2), pages 121-139, June.
    54. Papke, Leslie E & Wooldridge, Jeffrey M, 1996. "Econometric Methods for Fractional Response Variables with an Application to 401(K) Plan Participation Rates," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(6), pages 619-632, Nov.-Dec..
    55. Loudermilk, Margaret S., 2007. "Estimation of Fractional Dependent Variables in Dynamic Panel Data Models With an Application to Firm Dividend Policy," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 25, pages 462-472, October.
    56. Caselli, Francesco, 2005. "Accounting for cross-country income differences," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 3567, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    57. Peter J. Klenow & Andrés Rodríguez-Clare, 1997. "The Neoclassical Revival in Growth Economics: Has It Gone Too Far?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12, pages 73-114, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    58. Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 2014. "Quasi-maximum likelihood estimation and testing for nonlinear models with endogenous explanatory variables," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 182(1), pages 226-234.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bluhm R & Crombrugghe D.P.I. de & Szirmai A., 2013. "The pace of poverty reduction - A fractional response approach," MERIT Working Papers 2013-051, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    2. Bluhm, Richard & de Crombrugghe, Denis & Szirmai, Adam, 2018. "Poverty accounting," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 237-255.
    3. Facundo Alvaredo & Leonardo Gasparini, 2013. "Recent Trends in Inequality and Poverty in Developing Countries," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0151, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    4. Tarlok Singh, 2022. "Economic growth and the state of poverty in India: sectoral and provincial perspectives," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 55(3), pages 1251-1302, August.
    5. Asongu, Simplice A. & Nwachukwu, Jacinta C., 2017. "Quality of Growth Empirics: Comparative gaps, benchmarking and policy syndromes," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 861-882.
    6. Cerra,Valerie & Lama,Ruy & Loayza,Norman V., 2021. "Links between Growth, Inequality, and Poverty : A Survey," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9603, The World Bank.
    7. Stimpfle, Alexander & Stadelmann, David, 2015. "The Impact of Fundamental Development Factors on Different Income Groups: International Evidence," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113128, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. Jones, C.I., 2016. "The Facts of Economic Growth," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 3-69, Elsevier.
    9. Vincenzo Lombardo, 2011. "Growth and Inequality Effects on Poverty Reduction in Italy," Rivista italiana degli economisti, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 2, pages 241-280.
    10. Ngepah, Nicholas & Espoir, Delphin Kamanda, 2018. "Binding constraints of economic growth on poverty: A dynamic panel data analysis," MPRA Paper 92136, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Oct 2018.
    11. Crombrugghe, D.P.I. de & Szirmai, A. & Bluhm, R., 2014. "Poor trends: The pace of poverty reduction after the Millennium Development Agenda," MERIT Working Papers 2014-006, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    12. Rui Benfica & Heath Henderson, 2021. "The Effect of the Sectoral Composition of Economic Growth on Rural and Urban Poverty," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 67(1), pages 248-284, March.
    13. Szirmai, Adam, 2013. "Institutions and economic growth: Summary and synthesis," MERIT Working Papers 2013-070, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    14. Kouadio, Hugues Kouassi & Gakpa, Lewis-Landry, 2022. "Do economic growth and institutional quality reduce poverty and inequality in West Africa?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 41-63.
    15. Kalwij, A.S. & Verschoor, A., 2004. "How Good is Growth for the Poor? The Role of Initial Income Distribution in Regional Diversity in Poverty Trends," Other publications TiSEM 199ed5a4-ad69-4cf9-81d7-b, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    16. Fosu, Augustin Kwasi, 2017. "Growth, inequality, and poverty reduction in developing countries: Recent global evidence," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 306-336.
    17. Ravallion, Martin, 2010. "The Developing World's Bulging (but Vulnerable) Middle Class," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 445-454, April.
    18. Kalwij, Adriaan & Verschoor, Arjan, 2007. "Not by growth alone: The role of the distribution of income in regional diversity in poverty reduction," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 805-829, May.
    19. Adriaan Kalwij & Arjan Verschoor, 2005. "A Decomposition of Poverty Trends Across Regions: the Role of Variation in the Income and Inequality Elasticities of Poverty," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2005-36, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    20. Edgar J. Wilson & Kankesu Jayanthakumaran & Reetu Verma, 2022. "Urban poverty, growth, and inequality: A needed paradigm shift?," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 941-961, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    poverty; inequality; income growth; fractional response models.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2016-413. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecineea.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Maria Ana Lugo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecineea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.