Other Poverty Study

351 items available

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Capacity Building in Fiscal Incidence Analysis: Lessons and Reflections from the Field

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-03-28) World Bank

Fiscal Incidence Analysis (FIA) is the study of how fiscal policies benefit (or burden, in the case of taxes) people and households at different parts of the income distribution. The objective of this note is to highlight lessons learned in capacity building and skill transfer for FIA, including Commitment to Equity (CEQ) assessment. The goal is to uncover effective strategies for transferring the skills and capacities to government officials and other fiscal experts in countries around the world to enable them to carry out this type of analysis themselves. The note is based on interviews with experts, both within and outside of the World Bank who have been conducting FIA assessments and building and using microsimulation tools, often in close collaboration with officials from the government. The rest of this note: (i) describes the common engagement models and capacity building approaches that have been taken; (ii) assesses the extent to which these have been successful and distils lessons learned from some of these efforts, and (iii) identifies a few concrete ways in which similar efforts in the future could be made more effective.
Using Remittance Transaction Data for Timely Estimation of the Foreign Worker Population in Malaysia

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06-06) Ahmad, Zainab Ali ; Simler, Kenneth ; Yi, Soonhwa

Malaysia has been grappling with understanding how many foreign workers reside in the country and thus faces challenges in formulating evidence-based foreign worker policies. This paper investigates how to use micro-level remittance transaction data collected from money transfer service providers to estimate the number of foreign workers. Most foreign workers remit a large portion of their earnings to support family members back home. They are low-income earners, are sensitive to remittance costs, and thus opt for money transfer service providers to remit money rather than regular banks, where transfer services are more expensive. Therefore, the remittance data provide a useful source to conduct the investigation. Existing estimates range from two to five million foreign workers; our results narrow that range considerably, estimating a total of 2.99 million to 3.16 million foreign workers in Malaysia as of 2017–18. State and nationality distributions of foreign workers in our estimates are consistent with the Ministry of Home Affairs data, lending support to the validity of our estimates. Nevertheless, authors note that the Bank Negara Malaysia remittance data could potentially underestimate the number of workers in states with low access to money service providers, as well as nationalities that have access to alternative money transfer mechanisms such as commercial banking and informal transfer channels.
Braving the Storm: Poverty and Inequality in Bosnia and Herzegovina 2007-2011

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-05) World Bank ; Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina ; FBiH Institute for Statistics ; RS Institute for Statistics ; AGe

This note describes the trends in, and composition of, absolute poverty based on household expenditures, and is thus concerned, as a matter of policy objectives, with access of the population to a particular minimum standard of living. This should be viewed as complementary to the companion note on social exclusion based on Europe 2020 indicators including the relative at-risk-of-poverty (AROP) rate, focuses on low income in relation to other residents in a given country. In addition to the analysis of absolute poverty, the note also presents an analysis of inclusive growth, aimed at assessing whether income growth (losses) benefit (impact) differentially the lowest part (here, bottom forty percent) of the distribution. Other approaches, such as those including measures of poverty based on current income, or self-reported measures of affordability, or approached that differ in the way they set the poverty threshold exist. The choice of World Bank’s methodology for purposes of this report is primarily on pragmatic grounds: (i) it allows for the analysis of trends during 2007-2011; (ii) the same methodology was adopted in the previous report (World Bank 2009) to analyze poverty trends during 2004-2007, thus providing a longer trend; (iii) it allows for comparisons of trends across the entities of BiH.
More Jobs, Better Jobs : A Priority for Egypt

(Washington, DC, 2014-06) World Bank

Much of the current debate around the recent economic crisis in the Arab Republic of Egypt has focused on unemployment. Although unemployment is an important marker of labor market health, the jobs problem in Egypt precedes the recent crisis and is manifested markedly in other labor market metrics. Indeed, the link between growth and unemployment in Egypt is weak, particularly for men. This chapter argues that the reason for this weak link is partly related to decades of flawed industrial policies that have discouraged investment in employment-generating activities. Industrial policies, including those implemented in the mid-2000s, were never focused on mitigating market failures to promote the emergence of fast-growing, high-productivity firms. Instead, they have worked to preserve insider privileges, leading to growth in sectors that are not labor intensive. Policy makers therefore need to look beyond supply-side focused labor market policies to accelerate employment growth.
Trends and Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment in South Asia

(Washington, DC, 2013-06-16) World Bank

Like many other developing countries, South Asian nations have been experiencing increased Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows over the past decade as developing countries get a larger share of cross-border investments once sent to developed countries. Nonetheless, South Asia's FDI inflows remain the lowest relative to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) among developing country regions. Over the next 20 years, more than one million new workers will be entering the South Asian labor market each month as the region's youth bulge matures and seeks employment. To absorb these workers and provide higher living standards and reduce poverty, South Asian countries will have to rely on more than just public investment. This report looks into the historical patterns of FDI in South Asia, examines its sectoral composition, and evaluates current policies and policy options that may help create an environment for increasing FDI flows. The launching point for this study is the substantial empirical literature that suggests that FDI is associated with growth, development, and productivity enhancement. The goal of the study is modest in that it does not seek to estimate the size of FDI spillovers on productivity growth, or address whether governments should actively subsidize FDI inflows over domestic investment as a means to enhance growth, but rather to understand whether the level of FDI flows as a share of GDP, its sectoral composition, and intra-regional flows are comparable to other developing regions and, if not, what might be some of the impediments to these flows. While FDI flows have increased over the past decade to South Asia, particularly from developed countries to South Asian service sectors, it has lagged in other sectors and remains relatively low overall. Overall, positive changes have taken place over the past few decades, while restrictions on FDI differ substantially among countries in South Asia. India's progress on FDI promoting policies has accelerated in recent years to make FDI policies more transparent, predictable, and simpler. Many other countries have also taken steps to improve transparency in regulations and reassure investors about the security of their investments in the country. Finally, the paper examines the determinants of FDI growth in South Asia.
Market Accessibility and Regional Maps : Kyrgyz Republic

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-04-01) Blankespoor, Brian

Access to markets is argued to have a significant role in development. In order to quantify the access of places to markets, policy makers are showing increasing interest in accessibility indicators (Yoshida and Deichmann 2009). This paper seeks to examine the spatial relationship of access to market in the Kyrgyz Republic using a recent census and household survey in order to identify possible linkages with rates of poverty and other micro (spatial) information. This analysis uses the market accessibility index that measures the potential connectivity of population or expenditures between village/towns and big cities via the transport network. Results show that high market accessibility is located near the large cities with a concentration of infrastructure, while low access is more in the rural areas. Future work will use this indicator in economic models to statistical identify its significance with regards to per capita expenditure and poverty.
EU11 Regular Economic Report : Coping with External Headwinds

(Washington, DC, 2012-06) World Bank

This study claims that despite the challenging external environment, EU11 countries did well in 2011. First, economic growth strengthened to above 3 percent (from around 2 percent in 2010) and the region fully recovered its output losses from the global financial crisis. Second, fiscal measures delivered reduction of around 3 percent of GDP in the EU11 average fiscal deficit. Third, the financial sector remained resilient to renewed concerns about negative feedback loops between insecure sovereign debtors and fragile financial markets. However, the good performance conceals important shifts in economic sentiment that occurred during the year. While the growth momentum was still strong in the first half of 2011, it slowed toward the end of the year, as the region started to feel the impact of lingering concerns about European sovereign-debt markets, creeping oil prices, and the global slowdown. With the downward trend in economic activity, labor markets remained slack. Unemployment rates hovered around those recorded in the midst of the global financial crisis with sluggish employment growth. The paper points out that the European economic growth model has delivered unprecedented welfare to the continent over the last half century. In spite of its remarkable success, several aspects of the European economic growth model require reform to ensure that it is sustainable. Among the priorities for many European states today are providing incentives for labor mobility, making public finances more sustainable, and adapting social security systems to demographic developments, and harmonizing regulation across borders. This note zeroes in on the EU11 region to explore what is driving their prosperity and growth. The main messages related to the drivers of growth and prosperity in EU11 are as follows: 1) Convergence; 2) Trade and finance; 3) Enterprise and innovation; 4) Labor; and 4) Government.
Liberia : Strategic Policy Options for Medium Term Growth and Development

(Washington, DC, 2012-03-15) World Bank

This paper explores Liberia's policy options in support of the development of a Medium-Term Growth and Development Strategy (MTGDS) for 2013-2017 and its national vision, Liberia Rising 2030. At issue is the mismatch between available fiscal space and the enormous development needs that the government must resolve as it prepares to transform the economy into a middle-income country by 2040. This dilemma calls for the new administration to make trade-offs among various priorities if it is to achieve its aspirations. For this purpose, a Liberian version of a single-country Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model, MAMS (Maquette for Millennium Development Goal, or MDG simulations), was developed and informed by analytical studies as well as sector strategies prepared in support of Liberia's MTGDS. This paper examines the likely impacts on macroeconomic and social indicators of alternate strategic policy scenarios. A base scenario (designed to represent a central case for the evolution of Liberia's economy up to 2030) was first established, and thereafter a set of different assumptions were introduced for the mining sector, government spending on infrastructure and human development, and foreign borrowing. The paper is organized into five sections including this introduction. Section two presents the basic features of MAMS. The simulation analysis, which is the focus of the paper, is covered in the next two sections: the base scenario in section three and a set of alternative scenarios, which are contrasted with the base scenario, in section four. The final section summarizes the main findings and conclusion. Appendices one and two include a set of figures with selected simulation results and a brief discussion of the Liberian database for MAMS, respectively.
Jamaica : Poverty and Social Impacts of Fiscal Reforms

(Washington, DC, 2012) World Bank

This Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA) explores the distributional effects of a package of fiscal reforms initiated by the Government of Jamaica and supported by the World Bank under the programmatic fiscal sustainability Development Policy Loan (DPL) series. The DPL series supports improved budget and debt management in order to reduce the debt overhang and create additional fiscal space for productive public spending, including social expenditures. The PSIA discusses the poverty and distributional impacts of the prior actions supported under the DPL, with a particular focus on two reform actions likely to have the most significant impacts: (1) tax reform and (2) public sector reform, focusing on rationalization of public bodies. The report offers both quantitative and qualitative assessments of the potential poverty and distributional effects of these policy changes. The report is structured as follows: section two analyzes the expected impact of changes in tax policy; section three investigates the potential impacts of public bodies' rationalization, and section four offers some caveats and concluding remarks. Each section begins with a discussion of the reform background as well as the major supporters and opponents of the reform. The analysis in each section is presented with the least possible amount of technical details in order to maximize the appeal to a broader audience. For the interested reader, the methodological details of the empirical approaches employed in this report are contained in the annexes.
Coping with Conflict? Poverty and Inclusion in the West Bank and Gaza

(World Bank, 2011-07-29) World Bank

The prevailing reality in the West Bank and Gaza, with its profound dependence on international aid and Israel, the stifling man-made regime of internal and external barriers to mobility, and the limited say on its economic policies and trade, is unique in the world. This report provides a detailed analysis of poverty and its close and enduring links with labor market outcomes and restrictions on the movement of goods and people in the West Bank and Gaza. The overarching objective of the report is to understand the trends in and determinants of poverty in the context of the ongoing conflict and closure regime. Covering the period after the second Intifada, this report is the first major analysis of poverty in the West Bank and Gaza since 2001, and unique in its use of multiple data sources, building a comprehensive and current picture of the economic and social well being of the Palestinian people. The dominant narrative of this report is one of divergence in important dimensions of poverty, growth and welfare between the West Bank and Gaza.