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Based on a multiple spells approach, this paper studies the extent and the composition of chronic poverty in Germany. The results indicate that about one-third of cross-sectional poverty in a given year is chronic. The characteristics that are most closely associated with long-term poverty are economic inactivity and pensioner status, while the number of children and the gender of the household head do not seem to have a systematic effect. This is in contrast to cross-sectional results where the biggest poverty risk is usually unemployment and a large number of children, while pensioners do not face particularly high poverty risks. Estimates from a multiple spells hazard model further suggest that 6% of the population have unobserved characteristics that lead to low poverty exit and high re-entry rates, making these individuals likely candidates for chronic poverty. A comparison with results for Great Britain and the United States suggests that poverty is less persistent in Germany.

More than half of the Mexican population lives in poverty. While there are many studies about poverty in Mexico, there are very few about the dynamics of poverty. The purpose of this paper is to measure chronic and transient poverty in Mexico and to analyze its determinants.

Based on the spells approach, a transition matrix was estimated and a multinomial logistic regression analysis was conducted to investigate the effects of various socioeconomic and demographic variables upon the dynamics of poverty.

It was found that 36 percent of households are chronically poor and 64 percent are transiently poor. The results show that variables directly related to chronic poverty are belonging to an ethnic minority group, living in a rural area, a large family size, having a high percentage of older adults and children in the household and having a female household head. Having more education, having more assets, the age of the household head and having access to potable water and electricity in the household are variables positively related with the probability of escaping poverty.

To the authors knowledge, this is the first study on the dynamics of poverty using the spells approach for Mexico as a whole, not just for urban areas. The value of this work is that it estimates chronic and transitory poverty in Mexico as well as their possible determinants. The study findings can be used by the government to design and implement public policies to alleviate both chronic and transient poverty in Mexico.

There is a paradox in the normative foundations for chronic and intertemporal poverty measurement. Measures that reflect particular aversion to chronicity of poverty cannot also reflect particular aversion to fluctuations in the level of poverty when poverty is intense, yet good arguments are made in favour of each of these properties. I argue that the paradox may be explained if the poverty analyst implicitly predicts that an individual observed to experience persistent poverty will continue to experience poverty when unobserved. The paradox may then be resolved by separating the normative exercise of evaluation, applying a measure that reflects particular aversion to fluctuations, from a positive exercise of modelling and prediction. This proposal is illustrated by application to panel data from rural Ethiopia, covering the period 1994–2004. Several dynamic models are estimated, and a simple model with household-specific trends is found to give the best predictions of future wellbeing levels. Appropriately normalised measures of intertemporal poverty are applied to the predicted and observed trajectories of wellbeing, and results are found to differ substantially from naïve application of the measures to observed periods only. While similar results are obtained by naïve application of the measures that embody particular aversion to chronicity, separation of the normative and positive exercises maintains conceptual clarity.

The concept of poverty traps based on a critical threshold that distinguishes transitory from chronic poverty gives rise to a crucial policy distinction between cargo nets and safety nets. While safety nets are designed to prevent the non‐poor and transitorily poor from falling into chronic poverty, cargo nets are meant to help those who fall below the critical threshold to help them climb out of chronic poverty. The study attempts to determine the factors that affect a beneficiary artisan's decision to use the toolkits provided, i.e. to climb up using the cargo net of improved toolkits and become more active economically.

The paper is based on primary data collected from the supply of improved toolkits to rural artisans (SITRA) programme in 2001‐2002. It is performed on the dataset consisting of 6,788 observations (beneficiary artisans). Due to some missing data 700 observations could not be used. Thus, only 6,088 observations are considered for the purpose of the ordered logit analysis.

The paper develops the related concepts of conditional and structural rigidities restraining the movement and studies the role of these rigidities in determining the economic mobility of a beneficiary household when a climbing cargo net is provided. The paper finds that there is strong evidence that governments are confused about the concept of poverty reduction and alleviation strategies. The study reveals that narrower targeting on beneficiaries with lower conditional rigidities is better as they are more likely to use the toolkits and hence increase their income from craftsmanship and so promote both economic growth and poverty reduction.

The study focuses on a specific poverty alleviation programme. The findings are restricted to a special economic group at all India level. Nonetheless, the study highlights that a thorough understanding of the conditional and structural rigidities faced by a beneficiary artisan and how these affect his economic behaviour would be very useful in both designing and implementation of poverty reduction programmes.

This paper will be of value to researchers, policy makers seeking to gain better understanding of targeting. The paper observes that appreciation of significant conditional rigidities are useful while designing programmes – particularly while targeting the beneficiaries – structural rigidities are more important while implementing and monitoring these programs.

We consider the link between poverty and subjective well-being, and focus in particular on the role of time. We use panel data on 49,000 individuals living in Germany from 1992 to 2012 to uncover three empirical relationships. First, life satisfaction falls with both the incidence and intensity of contemporaneous poverty. Second, poverty scars: those who have been poor in the past report lower life satisfaction today, even when out of poverty. Last, the order of poverty spells matters: for a given number of years in poverty, satisfaction is lower when the years are linked together. As such, poverty persistence reduces well-being. These effects differ by population subgroups.

This article raises five questions: What kinds of persons and families are poor? How do they become poor? How long do they remain poor? How do they cope with being poor? How do they escape from being poor? These questions are significant for one central and obvious reason: answering them improves our understanding of the nature of poverty or unmet human physical need, thereby contributing to the development of forms of aid to remedy that need. To the extent that we are successful in helping the needy, our social economics is enhanced, and any economic order based on that social economics should function more effectively. Two main sources of information on poverty from the Census Bureau are used to address those questions: the Current Population Survey and the Survey of Income and Program Participation. Both use the same absolute standard of poverty but each source produces a different estimate of poverty because they are fundamentally different in design and coverage. The data presented herein cover the period 1985 through 1993.

There has been a rapid expansion in the literature on the measurement of multidimensional poverty in recent years. This paper focuses on the longitudinal aspects of multidimensional poverty and its link to dynamic income poverty measurement. Using panel household survey data in Vietnam from 2007, 2008, and 2010, the paper analyses the prevalence and dynamics of both multidimensional and monetary poverty from the same dataset. The results show that the monetary poor (or non-poor) are not always multidimensionally poor (or non-poor) – indeed the overlap between the two measures is much less than 50 percent. Additionally, monetary poverty shows faster progress as well as a higher level of fluctuation than multidimensional poverty. We suggest that rapid economic growth as experienced by Vietnam has had a larger and more immediate impact on monetary than on multidimensional poverty.

The authors examine the association between infrastructure and a household's resilience capacity against shocks and the impacts of a household's resilience capacity on household consumption and poverty.

The authors use panel data (collected in 2010, 2013 and 2016) from 1,698 households in Thailand and 1,701 households in Vietnam and employ an instrumental variable approach.

The authors find that transportation and information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure help improve households' absorptive capacity in coping with shocks. Furthermore, this capacity can prevent households from reducing consumption and falling into poverty.

Rural development policies should attend to transportation and ICT infrastructure.

The authors establish empirical evidence on the association between infrastructure and a household's resilience capacity and the impact of resilience capacity on poverty.

The objective of the paper is to examine the profile and determinants of urban poverty in the two largest cities in Vietnam – Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh. The paper also investigates the dynamic aspect of urban poverty in Vietnam.

The authors use regression and data from the 2009 Urban Poverty Survey to examine the determinants of poverty in Vietnam. To analyse the poverty dynamics, an approach by Carter and May is used to decompose poverty into structural and stochastic poverty.

Using the poverty line of 12,000 thousand VND/person/year, the poverty incidence is estimated at 17.4 percent for Hanoi and 12.5 percent for Ho Chi Minh (HCM) City. There is a large proportion of the poor who are found stochastically poor. Hanoi has higher rates of structural poverty than HCM City. The proportion of structurally poor and stochastically non‐poor is rather small. Overall, the poor have fewer assets than the non‐poor. The poor also have poorer housing conditions, especially substantially lower access to tap water than the non‐poor. Heads of the poor households tend to have lower education and unskilled work than the heads of the non‐poor households.

In cities of Vietnam, a large proportion of the poor are found stochastically poor.

Poor people often experience a delay in meeting their healthcare needs due to their economic situation. As a result, delayed diagnoses and treatment may increase disease severity, increase the risk of death, and enhance disease transmission in the community. The purpose of this paper is to provide important information about health service delays among the poorest people in Turkey.

A field study is conducted among the 92 poorest households in the Etimesgut region of Ankara in order to ascertain any delays in health services among the poor, as well as the factors related to those delays.

The results of the study show that 87 percent of the households lived on a daily income of US$2.15, and that household member's delay seeking healthcare services an average of 4.66±1.17 times in the past year. Reasons for delaying or not seeking healthcare services included the following: participants thought they would get better without doing anything (7.6 percent), by using traditional herbs (12.7 percent), by using pharmaceuticals already on hand (11.4 percent), the health facility was too far away (5.1 percent), and inability to pay (63.3 percent). Significant associations are found between the delaying behaviors, socioeconomic characteristics of households, and health status.

At the end of the study, policy suggestions are provided for improving medical care seeking behaviors and treatment compliance among the poor.

Poverty is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon that consists of income insufficiency, lack of education, malnutrition, and poor health. The relationship between poverty and poor health impacts those who live in poverty as well as communities, organizations and entire countries. Reducing health disparities and decreasing delays and difficulties in access to health care among poor households are important goals.