Publication: Poverty and Environment : Understanding Linkages at the Household Level
Loading...
Published
2007-06
ISSN
Date
2012-06-11
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This report seeks to present micro evidence on how environmental changes affect poor households. It focuses primarily on environmental resources that are outside the private sphere, particularly commonly held and managed resources such as forests, fisheries, and wildlife. The objectives for this volume are three-fold. It is first interested in using an empirical data-driven approach to examine the dependence of the poor on natural resources. The second objective is to examine the role of the environment in determining health outcomes. A third area of interest concerns the role of policy instruments and reforms. This report uses general economics literature as well as data collected by the World Bank and its partners to analyze poverty-environment linkages at the household level. Poverty-environment linkages are inherently dynamic and involve behavioral responses that make the identification of cause and effect difficult. Thus, questions related to these linkages are ideally answered with the use of panel datasets or with data from randomized experiments.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2007. Poverty and Environment : Understanding Linkages at the Household Level. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/7744 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Poverty and Environment : Understanding Linkages at the Household Level(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007)This report seeks to present micro evidence on how environmental changes affect poor households. It focuses primarily on environmental resources that are outside the private sphere, particularly commonly held and managed resources such as forests, fisheries, and wildlife. The objectives for this volume are three-fold. It is first interested in using an empirical data-driven approach to examine the dependence of the poor on natural resources. The second objective is to examine the role of the environment in determining health outcomes. A third area of interest concerns the role of policy instruments and reforms. This report uses general economics literature as well as data collected by the World Bank and its partners to analyze poverty-environment linkages at the household level. Poverty-environment linkages are inherently dynamic and involve behavioral responses that make the identification of cause and effect difficult. Thus, questions related to these linkages are ideally answered with the use of panel datasets or with data from randomized experiments.Publication Is Green Growth Good for the Poor?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-06)The developing world is experiencing substantial environmental change, and climate change is likely to accelerate these processes in the coming decades. Due to their initial poverty and their relatively high dependence on environmental capital for their livelihoods, the poor are likely to suffer most due to their low resources for mitigation and investment in adaptation. Economic growth is essential for any large-scale poverty reduction. Green growth, a growth process that is sensitive to environmental and climate change concerns, can be particularly helpful in this respect. We focus on the possible trade-offs between the greening of growth and poverty reduction, and we highlight the sectoral and spatial processes behind effective poverty reduction. High labor intensity, declining shares of agriculture in GDP and employment, migration, and urbanization are essential features of poverty-reducing growth. We contrast some common and stylized green-sensitive growth ideas related to agriculture, trade, technology, infrastructure, and urban development with the requirements of poverty-sensitive growth. We find that these ideas may cause a slowdown in the effectiveness of growth to reduce poverty. The main lesson is that trade-offs are bound to exist; they increase the social costs of green growth and should be explicitly addressed. If they are not addressed, green growth may not be good for the poor, and the poor should not be asked to pay the price for sustaining growth while greening the planet.Publication Is Green Growth Good for the Poor?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-10)The developing world is experiencing substantial environmental change, and climate change is likely to accelerate these processes in the coming decades. Due to their initial poverty, and their relatively high dependence on environmental capital for their livelihoods, the poor are likely to suffer most due to their low resources for mitigation and investment in adaptation. Economic growth is essential for any large-scale poverty reduction. Green growth, a growth process that is sensitive to environmental and climate change concerns, is often seen to be particularly helpful in this respect, leading to a win-win in growth and poverty reduction terms, with additional gains for the cause of greening the planet and avoiding further disastrous environmental change. This paper argues that such a view ignores important trade-offs in the nature of "green growth" strategies, stemming from a poor understanding of the sector and spatial processes behind effective poverty reduction. High labor intensity, declining shares of agriculture in gross domestic product and employment, migration, and urbanization are essential features of poverty-reducing growth. The paper contrasts some common and stylized green-sensitive growth ideas related to agriculture, trade, technology, infrastructure, and urban development with the requirements of poverty-sensitive growth. It finds that they may well cause a slow-down in the effectiveness of growth in reducing poverty. The main lesson therefore is that trade-offs are bound to exist; they increase the social costs of green growth and should be explicitly addressed. If not, green growth may not be good for the poor and the poor should not be asked to pay the price for sustaining growth while greening the planet.Publication Scaling the Heights : Social Inclusion and Sustainable Development in Himachal Pradesh(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-01)Himachal Pradesh has the reputation of being stable, inclusive, cohesive and well-governed and it stands apart in many respects from its neighbors in northern India. It has additionally, achieved remarkable growth, especially in the last two decades, which has been accompanied by very good human development outcomes. Despite being a predominantly rural society, educational attainment in Himachal Pradesh for instance, is among the best in the country; poverty headcount is nearly one-third of the national average; life expectancy is 3.4 years longer than the number of years an average Indian expects to live; and, per capita income is the second highest among "special category" states in India. Underlying its strong economic and social development outcomes is Himachal Pradesh's commitment to expand access to public services to the remotest areas, across tough, hilly terrain and its strong institutional foundations. Inter-group disparities are low in a state where traditionally disadvantaged groups such as the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) make up a solid 30 percent of the population.Publication Addressing Vulnerability in East Asia : A Regional Study(Washington, DC, 2012-06)The East Asian and Pacific region has achieved tremendous progress in poverty reduction in recent years. However, further progress in poverty reduction may be undermined by the high levels of vulnerability in many countries across the region. The term vulnerability is viewed from an economic context, where it is conceived as the likelihood of suffering from future deteriorations in standard of living which may result in a state of poverty, or inability to meet basic needs. Therefore, vulnerability is stated as an ex-ante measure of well-being, reflecting not so much how well off a household (or an individual) currently is, but what its future prospects are. In thinking about poverty and vulnerability, it is important to realize that there are two groups of households: a) those who are vulnerable to transitory poverty if exposed to adverse shocks; and b) those who are structurally or chronically poor-many of those households have been affected by shocks in the past, and have limited long-term income generating capacity. To better protect household from shocks one must also better understand how households face and manage risks.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Health Provider Payment Reforms in China(Washington, DC, 2010)This paper examines health provider payment reforms in China the present system and how it evolved, and changes that will improve it in the context of ongoing health reform. The paper begins with a brief introduction and background discussion followed by two substantive sections experiments with case-based payment systems, and experiments with alternative government budget payment methods. This is followed by an examination of what has worked in China and elsewhere. The concluding discussion considers lessons for China and next steps. Many policy instruments and reforms have been implemented to use National Cooperative Medical System (NCMS), Basic Medical Insurance (BMI), and government health budgets more efficiently. These include alternative payment systems, reduced drug prices, essential drug lists, controlled use of high technologies, and strengthening the primary healthcare system.Publication Impacts of Trade Liberalization on Poverty and Inequality in Argentina(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-06)Using the most recent estimates of agricultural price distortions, this chapter studies the economic, poverty, and income inequality impacts of both global and domestic trade reform in Argentina, with a special focus on export taxes. Argentina offers an interesting case study as the only large agricultural exporter that has, at many points in its history, applied export taxes to several of its agricultural products. The chapter combines results from a global economy-wide model (World Bank's linkage model), a national computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, and micro-simulations. The results suggest that liberalization of world trade (including subsidies and import taxes, but not export taxes), both for agricultural and non-agricultural goods, reduces poverty and inequality in Argentina. However, if only agricultural goods are included, indicators for poverty and inequality do not improve and even deteriorate somewhat. This is particularly the case if export taxes are eliminated. The chapter discusses the possible reasons for those results, offers some caveats, and suggests some lines for further research.Publication Measuring Financial Capability : Questionnaires and Implementation Guidance for Low-, and Middle-Income Countries(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-06)This manual is designed to provide guidance to institutions, researchers, and survey firms on how to measure financial capability in middle, and low income countries using a new survey instrument that was developed and tested, from start to finish, in middle- and low-income countries. This new survey was developed as part of a larger project financed by the Russia Financial Literacy and Education Trust Fund (RTF) and implemented by the World Bank that encompassed both measurement of financial capability and evaluation of financial literacy programs. The development of the new RTF Financial Capability Survey (FCS) was done in collaboration with a team of external experts and teams from a total of 12 low- and middle-income countries. The full description of how the survey was developed can be found in Kempson, Perotti, and Scott (2013) along with findings from the first wave of surveys that have been done. In this manual we briefly summarize reasons why the FCS might be of interest to a country, provide a detailed outline of the issues related to implementing the survey successfully, and demonstrate how to analyze the resulting data. The first chapter of the manual lays out the reasons why this survey could be of use to policy makers. Chapter two describes the FCS questionnaires and their goals and objectives. Topics related to fieldwork, or the implementation of the survey, are covered in chapter three. Guidance on how to analyze the survey is provided in chapter four. The survey instruments can be found in the appendixes of this manual, and related documents, interviewer and supervisor manuals, can be found on the Trust Fund website www.finlitedu.org.Publication Taxes, Spending, and Equity: International Patterns and Lessons for Developing Countries(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-17)Taxes and public spending underpin the basic administration of government and finance the human capital and infrastructure investments needed for economic growth. They can also have a significant and immediate impact on poverty and inequality. The question of how public finance can support longer-term growth objectives while promoting equity has become even more important in recent years, given the high fiscal deficits and debt levels most countries emerged with in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. These included the increasing cost of debt and the need to restart environmentally sustainable growth while helping households address the learning losses and other social scars caused by the pandemic. This paper examines the global evidence on which households pay which taxes and who benefits from what spending, and critically, the net effect on different households across the income distribution. The aim is to identify the patterns and lessons that emerge for designing progressive fiscal policies. A global dataset of 96 countries is assembled, spanning all regions of the world and all national income levels, grounded in the Commitment to Equity (CEQ) approach to fiscal incidence.