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This paper evaluates consumption-based poverty in the United States using Consumer Expenditure Survey data. The poverty measures rest upon micro-theoretic foundations of utility maximizing behavior and a complete demand system. The Translog model (Christensen et al., 1975) is used to replicate and extend Slesnick’s (1993) measures of poverty into the late 1990s. Consumption-based poverty analysis is extended by computing Sen (1976) indexes, which provide more complete measures of poverty than simple headcount ratios. The robustness of Slesnick’s results is tested under alternative assumptions concerning shares of services between housing and other durables across time.

The impacts of median income and other variables on the Sen index of poverty in the United States are investigated using panel data with fixed time period and cross sectional effects. Estimates for the Sen index and its decomposed components – the headcount ratio, poverty gap ratio, and Gini coefficient among the poor reveal that median income among state/regions and across time systematically influences the Sen index and each of its components. However, the results reveal that labor market and demographic control variables have quite different effects on the distinct components of the Sen index.

With the recognition that generating economic growth is not the same as sustaining it, the challenge to catch-up and growth literature is discerning between these processes. Recent research suggests that the decline in the frequency of “shrinking” episodes is more important for long-term development than higher growth rates. By using a framework centred around social capabilities, this study aims to investigate the effects of income inequality and poverty on economic shrinking frequency, as opposed to previous literature that has exclusively had a growth focus. The aim is to investigate how and why some societies might be more resilient to economic shrinking.

The research is a quantitative study, and the authors build a longitudinal data set including 23 developing countries throughout 42 years to test the paper’s purpose. This study uses country and period fixed-effects specifications as well as cross-sectional graphical representations to investigate the relationship between proxies of economic inclusivity and the frequency of shrinking episodes.

The authors demonstrate that while inclusive societies are more resilient to shrinking overall, it is changes in poverty levels, but not changes in income inequality, that appear to be correlated with economic shrinking frequency. Inequality, while still an important element to explain countries’ growth potential as an initial condition, does not seem to make the sample more resilient to shrinking. The authors conclude that the mechanisms in which poverty and inequality are correlated with the catch-up process must run through different channels. Ultimately, processes that explain growth may intersect but not always overlap with the ones that explain resilience to shrinking.

The need for inclusive growth in long-term development has been championed for decades, yet inclusion has seldom been explored from the shrinking perspective. Though poverty reduction is already an important mainstream political objective, this paper differentiates itself by providing an alternate viewpoint of why this is important. Income inequality could have more of an economic growth limiting effect, while poverty reduction could be required to build resilience to economic shrinking. Developing countries will need both growth and resilience to shrinking, to catch-up with higher-income economies, which policymakers might need to balance carefully.

A growing polarization of society accompanied by an erosion of the middle class is receiving increasing attention in recent German economic and social policy discussion. Our study contributes to this discussion in two ways: First, on a theoretical level we propose extended multidimensional polarization indices based on a constant elasticity of substitution (CES)-type well-being function and present a new measure to multidimensional polarization, the mean minimum polarization gap, 2DGAP. This polarization intensity measure provides transparency with regard to each single attribute, which is important for targeted policies, while at the same time respecting their interdependent relations. Second, in an empirical application, time is incorporated, in addition to the traditional income measure, as a fundamental resource for any activity. In particular, genuine personal leisure time will account for social participation in the sense of social inclusion/exclusion and Amartya Sen’s capability approach.

Instead of arbitrarily choosing the attribute parameters in the CES well-being function, the interdependent relations of time and income are evaluated by the German population. With the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) and detailed time use diary data from the German Time Use Surveys (GTUSs) 1991/1992 and 2001/2002, we quantify available and extended multidimensional polarization measures as well as our new approach to measuring the polarization of the working poor and affluent in Germany.

There are three prominent empirical results: Genuine personal leisure time in addition to income is an important and significant polarization attribute. Compensation is of economic and statistical significance. The new minimum 2DGAP approach reveals that multidimensional polarization increased in the 1990s in Germany.

Using the latest census data (2010), this paper investigates housing poverty conditions in Shanghai, the largest city in China. The data shows that a large fraction of Shanghai households are still living in excessively over-crowded housing. Meanwhile, the incidence ratio of housing poverty among migrants is more than five times than among natives. In particular, 45% of rural migrant households were living in housing poverty. Poverty decomposition analysis shows that approximately 70% of total housing poverty in Shanghai is attributable to rural migrants. Our finding is supported by estimating the multidimensional poverty index (MPI). The findings in this paper have significant implications to general housing policy making in urban China.

This study provides the critical masses (thresholds) at which the positive incidence of finance and economic growth will be dampened by the negative effects of income inequality and poverty on energy consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa for policy direction.

The study employed the two steps systems GMM estimator for 41 countries in Africa from 2005–2020.

The study found that for finance to maintain a positive effect on energy consumption per capita, the critical thresholds for the income inequality indicators (Atkinson coefficient, Gini index and the Palma ratio) should not exceed 0.681, 0.582 and 5.991, respectively. Similarly, for economic growth (GDP per capita growth) to maintain a positive effect on energy consumption per capita, the critical thresholds for the income inequality indicators (Atkinson coefficient, Gini index and the Palma ratio) should not exceed 0.669, 0.568 and 6.110, respectively. On the poverty level in Sub-Saharan Africa, the study reports that the poverty headcount ratios (hc$144ppp2011, hc$186ppp2011 and hc$250ppp2005) should not exceed 7.342, 28.278 and 129.332, respectively for financial development to maintain a positive effect on energy consumption per capita. The study also confirms the positive nexus between access to finance (financial development) and energy consumption per capita, with the attending adverse effect on CO₂ emissions inescapable. The findings of this study make it evidently clear, for policy recommendation that finance is at the micro-foundation of economic growth, income inequality and poverty alleviation. However, a maximum threshold of income inequality and poverty headcount ratios as indicated in this study must be maintained to attain the full positive ramifications of financial development and economic growth on energy consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The originality of this study is found in the computation of the threshold and net effects of poverty and income inequality in economic growth through the conditional and unconditional effects of finance.

Most poverty research has explored monetary poverty. This chapter presents and analyzes the global multidimensional poverty index (MPI) estimations for China. Using China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we find China’s global MPI was 0.035 in 2010 and decreased significantly to 0.017 in 2014. The dimensional composition of MPI suggests that nutrition, education, safe drinking water, and cooking fuel contribute most to overall non-monetary poverty in China. Such analysis is also applied to subgroups, including geographic areas (rural/urban, east/central/west, provinces), as well as social characteristics such as gender of the household heads, age, education level, marital status, household size, migration status, ethnicity, and religion. We find the level and composition of poverty differs significantly across certain subgroups. We also find high levels of mismatch between monetary and multidimensional poverty at the household level, which highlights the importance of using both complementary measures to track progress in eradicating poverty.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the poverty rates of Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan, representing majority Muslim populations, and of India as a minority Muslim population, according to Ibn Khaldun's dynamic model on poverty.

According to Ibn Khaldun, poverty is not merely influenced by economic dimension. He initiated fundamental factors as mentioned in his formula P=f(W,G,N,S,g,J ) where P is a function of Wealth of the Nation (W ), Government (G ), Human Resource (N ), Sharia (S ), Growth ( g) and Justice ( J ). This study generates secondary data covering from 2000‐2010 or after financial crisis of 1997. These data employed using Panel method.

The study's findings reveal that the variable of Dynamic model of Ibn Khaldun influenced significantly the level of poverty in Indonesia as a Muslim majority population, whereas in Pakistan only the HDI variable has significant influence. Meanwhile (like Malaysia) in India, the variable of Dynamic model of Ibn Khaldun does not influence significantly.

Each country has certain characteristics and background with respect to economic growth, government policy and population that might influence poverty. As a result, the application of Ibn Khaldun model varies accordingly.

The findings reveal that quite a few challenges lie ahead in applying Ibn Khaldun model in these countries. This needs to be taken on promptly by each country, especially Muslim countries.

This paper is one of few studies which employ Ibn Khaldun theory on poverty, using panel data to investigate the appropriateness of the model.

The purpose of this study is to examine the poverty rate of Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan representing majority Muslim populations and that of India as a minority Muslim population according to Ibn Khaldun's dynamic model on poverty.

According to Ibn Khaldun, poverty is not merely influenced by economic dimensions. He initiated fundamental factors, as mentioned in his formula, which are the functions of Wealth of the Nation, Government, Human Resource, Shariah, Growth and Justice. This study generates secondary data covering the period from 2000 to 2010 or after the financial crisis of 1997. These data were generated using the Panel method.

The findings of this study reveal that the dynamic model of Ibn Khaldun significantly influenced the level of poverty in Indonesia as a Muslim-majority population, whereas in Pakistan, only the human development index variable has a significant influence. Meanwhile, like Malaysia, in India, the dynamic model of Ibn Khaldun did not have significant influence.

Each country has certain characteristics and background with respect to economic growth, government policy and population that might influence poverty. As a result, the application of Ibn Khaldun's model varies accordingly.

The findings reveal that quite a few challenges lie ahead in applying Ibn Khaldun's model in these countries. This needs to be taken on promptly by each country, especially Muslim countries.

This paper is one of the few studies which use Ibn Khaldun' theory on poverty using panel data to investigate the appropriateness of the model.

Using real-time data from the University of Luxembourg’s COME-HERE nationally representative panel survey, covering more than 8,000 individuals across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden, the author investigates how income distributions and poverty rates have changed from January to September 2020. The author finds that poverty rates increased on average in all countries from January to May and partially recovered in September. The increase in poverty is heterogeneous across countries, with Italy being the most affected and France the least; within countries, COVID-19 contributed to exacerbating poverty differences across regions in Italy and Spain. With a set of poverty measures from the Foster–Greer–Thorbecke family, the author then explores the role of individual characteristics in shaping different poverty profiles across countries. Results suggest that poverty increased disproportionately more for young individuals, women, and respondents who had a job in January 2020 – with different intensities across countries.