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Income Fluctuations, Poverty and Well-Being Over Time: Theory and Application to Argentina

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  • Guillermo Cruces

    (STICERD & Economics Department, LSE)

Abstract

This paper studies poverty as a dynamic phenomenon, motivated by the recurring economic crises that affect developing countries and the incidence of income fluctuations on household welfare. While the increasing availability of household panel data has been exploited in theoretical analysis and empirical applications, the methodological and applied literatures still lack a unified framework. Echoing Atkinson (1987), this paper addresses the question of how poverty should be measured over time – or, in more general terms, how to measure well- being based on repeated observations of household income. The paper develops and illustrates a set of tools for empirical work based on theoretically sound extensions of the existing methodology for static distributional analysis. Moreover, this framework encompasses some of the existing approaches as special cases. These tools are illustrated with longitudinal data for Argentina in the 1995-2002 period, which is well suited for this type of analysis given the large fluctuations in household income due to the repeated economic crises in the country.

Suggested Citation

  • Guillermo Cruces, 2005. "Income Fluctuations, Poverty and Well-Being Over Time: Theory and Application to Argentina," Labor and Demography 0502007, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpla:0502007
    Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 47
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    Cited by:

    1. Johannes Gräb & Michael Grimm, 2007. "Robust Multiperiod Poverty Comparisons," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 160, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    2. Hoy, Michael & Zheng, Buhong, 2011. "Measuring lifetime poverty," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(6), pages 2544-2562.
    3. Nwankwo, Uche M. & Wolfgang, Bokelmann, 2008. "The Effect of Information and Market Access on Adopters' Income Level," 108th Seminar, February 8-9, 2008, Warsaw, Poland 48101, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Nicholas Rohde & Kam Ki Tang & D.S. Prasada Rao, 2014. "Distributional Characteristics of Income Insecurity in the U.S., Germany, and Britain," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(S1), pages 159-176, May.
    5. Michael Savage, 2016. "Poorest Made Poorer? Decomposing income losses at the bottom of the income distribution during the Great Recession," Papers WP528, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Risk; Income Fluctuations; Panel Data; Poverty; Argentina;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

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