Headcount Ratio Research Articles

Poverty Profile and Health Dynamics of Indigenous People

This paper examines the critical aspect of health dynamics in the context of poverty and development of Indigenous people (Agta Isarog & Agta Tabangnon) in Mt. Isarog, Southern Luzon, the Philippines. The datasets were gathered from the Community-Based Monitoring System (CBMS) of Goa Municipality, complemented by IP Censuses of 2018-2019. The core poverty indicators were analyzed in aggregated and disaggregated approaches. The poverty of each locality differs yet a large portion of the entire households and population of indigenous people are living below the poverty and food thresholds. In addition, the poverty incidence, gap, and severity using headcount ratios, gap metrics, squared gap statistics, and Watts indices were evaluated. It has been revealed that the poverty of Indigenous people is moderate to intense and manageable through intervention programs and policy initiatives. It then subsequently characterized the variables of health dynamics which vary per locality, and have been impacting poverty across all barangays. To confirm whether health dynamics predict poverty occurrences, Logistic regression models were estimated in an individual and consolidated manner. Results confirm that health dynamics significantly predict poverty outcomes.

Rising Food Prices and Farming Households Food Insecurity during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Policy Implications from SouthWest Nigeria

The government’s lockdown and restriction measures on the COVID-19 pandemic adversely altered livelihoods, commodity/food prices as well as food security status in Nigeria, especially for rural farming households. A multistage sampling technique was used to collect data from 480 rural farming households across three selected states of the SouthWest geopolitical zone of Nigeria. This research entailed rapid evaluation of the determining factors of rising food expenditure, implications for food security as well as households’ coping strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic. A structured questionnaire was used to obtain data that were analyzed using the following descriptive and inferential statistics: double-logarithmic analysis, Foster–Greer–Thorbecke (FGT) and probit regression analysis. The results showed that 60% of respondents were married, mean years spent in school was 17, mean age was 49 years, household size was 7 people and monthly income less than $200. The FGT model results for head count ratio showed that 78% of households were food insecure. The depth of food insecurity and severity before COVID-19 were 18.4% and 9.9% respectively, and 27.1% and 13.0% during the pandemic. The double-logarithmic regression revealed that household income, size, age and occupation significantly influenced the household’s food expenditure. Probit regression showed that households’ income, size, amount spent on food, and the household’s head, gender and educational level influenced its food security status. The research concluded that food security was indeed influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic among rural farming households in Nigeria. Intervention policies are needed to promote and enable sustainable livelihoods to eradicate hunger and food insecurity due to high food prices and high household sizes in relation to their low average income to enable rural farming households to economically recover and have the capacity to sustain themselves against future shocks.

Effect of climate smart agricultural practices on farming householdsʹ food security status in Ika North East Local Government Area, Delta State, Nigeria

This study investigates the effect of Climate Smart Agricultural Practices on farming households` food security status in Ika North East Local Government Area, Delta State, Nigeria. The study utilized primary data. The data was collected using structured questionnaire. A three-staged sampling technique was used to select 140 respondents for the study. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics, FGT model and logit regression model. The result of the study shows that majority of the farmers were aware of the CSA practices, and the following practices were the most utilized practices among the respondents; Agro-forestry, Crop rotation, Mixed cropping, Improved crop varieties, Intercropping, Compost making, Improved fallowing, Organic manure, Mulching and Cover crops. The headcount ratio showed a poverty head count ratio of 0.29, food insecurity shortfall 0.28, and food insecurity severity of 0.13. The regression result indicated age (p<0.05), gender (p<0.01), household size (p<0.01), and years of farming experience were the major determinants of food security in the study area. The study concluded that though climate smart agricultural practices have positive coefficient but however not significant have the potential to enhance food security. The study also recommended that policy be put in place help confront the constraints being faced by the farmers from adopting CSAs in the study area.

Perturbation analysis for dynamic poverty indexes

Sensitivity analysis of random systems may convey important information on the dynamical properties of the system. In this paper, we determine the effects of parameters’ perturbation on two dynamic poverty indexes: the headcount ratio and the income gap ratio. This is achieved by perturbing the generator of the Markov process governing the evolution in time of the economic agents among three classes of income, the initial distribution of individuals and the vector of mean income for poverty class. The paper presents two bounds on the aforementioned poverty indexes which show how the perturbations on the model parameters propagate on the poverty indexes. The paper contributes to the literature presenting for the first time effective bounds for dynamic poverty indicators and exploring the applicability of the perturbation approach to real data.

Impact of food price increases on poverty in Indonesia: empirical evidence from cross-sectional data

PurposeUsing cross-sectional household survey data, this paper aims to determine the impact of food price increases on poverty in Indonesia.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses the quadratic almost ideal demand system applied to the 2013 Indonesian household survey data. The impact of food price increase on household welfare is calculated using a welfare measure, compensating variation.FindingsThree food groups with the most outstanding price impact on poverty, rice, vegetables and fish, were studied. The 20% increase in the price of each food group causes an increase in the headcount ratio by 1.360 points (rice), 0.737 points (vegetables) and 0.636 points (fish). Maintaining food price stability for these food groups is very important because the more the price increases, the more the impact on poverty. Food price policies in rural areas are also more critical than in urban areas because the impact of food price increases in rural areas is higher.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper does not consider the positive impact of rising food prices on food-producing households.Practical implicationsImplementing appropriate poverty alleviation policies through food policies for main food groups and social protection.Social implicationsPromoting rural development policies and agricultural growth.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the existing literature by providing empirical results regarding the impact of domestic food prices increase on poverty in Indonesia.

Assessing the Relationship between Poverty and Economic Growth: Does Sustainable Development Goal Can be Achieved?

Income inequality, poverty, and economic growth are defined as an economy's exposure to exogenous shocks arising out of poverty. The study used various econometric estimations to measure the effect of inequality and poverty on economic development during 1990 to 2016 in Vietnam. Various econometric estimation tests confirmed the presence of a long-run association between inequality and poverty, and economic growth is the matter of poverty headcount ratio in Vietnam. When we added the investment-to-GDP ratio and the number of years in education, it decreases by -0.144. This is reduced to -0.05 when log population growth rate was added while the employment, the coefficient decreases to -0.04 and becomes statistically insignificant. We found a negative impact of poverty and we reassess the hypothesis's emphasis on inequality and poverty and their combining effect of inclusive economic growth. Interestingly our results verify the previous findings that inequality and poverty show a negative impact on economic growth. The negative impact of poverty and inequality on economic growth appears to be concentrated at the high poverty level. These findings recommend that poverty reduction policies should be beneficial in encouraging economic growth even if they do not decrease income inequality.

Do international remittances promote poverty alleviation? Evidence from low- and middle-income countries

Abstract Unlike previous empirical studies, this paper investigates the contemporaneous and lagged impacts of international remittances on poverty alleviation using data for 65 low- and- middle-income countries from 2002 to 2016. By using two-stage least square (2SLS) regression analysis, this study establishes that, in general, international remittances per gross domestic product (GDP) significantly mitigate poverty. On average, a 10-percentage-point increase in remittances will lead to a similar decrease in the poverty headcount ratio at USD 1.90 a day, a 4.8-percentage-point decline in poverty gap ratio at USD 1.90 a day, and a 6.7-percentage-point reduction in the poverty gap ratio at USD 3.20 a day. This result remains robust with the inclusion of political factors in the model. Moreover, the system-generalized method of moments (SGMM) estimations found that the contemporaneous effects of international remittances are much more substantial than their lagged effects. This indicates that most of the poverty alleviation role of remittances is contributed by its direct effect on increasing the wealth index of recipient households rather than the spillover effect on other members of the community. Therefore, we strongly suggest that efforts be made to improve the remittance infrastructures, especially in recipient countries, and the development of cooperatives in the enclaves of migrant workers to spread the beneficial effects of remittances to all members of society.

Analyzing the gender disparity in education throughout the world

Gender inequality can be witnessed in the educational sphere affecting national economies, human resource development and the overall quality of life. The project examines this gender gap in education by obtaining data from one hundred and fifty eight different countries to determine the relationship between expected female years of education and gross national income per capita. Other explanatory variables including poverty headcount ratio, life expectancy, literacy rate, infant mortality rate and urban population are used to strengthen the model. It was seen that the expected education levels were positively correlated with GNI per capita, urban population and literacy rate while showing a negative correlation with poverty rates and infant mortality rate (IMR).

Do Trade and Poverty Cause Each Other? Evidence from BRICS

Any two variables that are observable have one or the other form of relationship. This is particularly a statistical relationship. But for a statistical relationship to be cause and effect, a theoretical relationship is important. The theoretical relationship can be quantified to search for the evidence of causality. The possible outcomes can be no causality, unidirectional causality, or bidirectional causality. The present study aims at searching for evidence from BRICS countries regarding trade causing poverty or vice versa. Applied econometrics approach is used in the study. Panel econometric techniques have been employed to identify presence/absence of causality between the variables. Apart from this, the study also uses equality of means to identify whether trade and poverty proxies are symmetrical or asymmetrical. The study finds no causal relationship between trade and poverty for BRICS countries except that poverty headcount at $3.2 per day causes trade balance. With respect to the impact on the GINI index, lowest 10 percent income share and poverty headcount ratios are integral to reduce the inequality in the BRICS countries.

IMPACT OF CROP PRODUCTIVITY ON POVERTY AMONG FARM HOUSEHOLDS IN GHANA

Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy I & II sought to increase crop productivity to reduce high poverty incidence in farm sector, but the magnitude of impact of the productivity on poverty is not present in all agro-ecological zones in Ghana. The aim of the study is to estimate poverty headcount ratio, poverty gap and poverty severity, and link crop productivity to poverty according to agroecology subject to a two-step instrumental variable regression technique using Pseudo Panel data from the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS rounds 5 & 6). Farmers’ poverty headcount ratio, poverty gap, and poverty severity reduced from 57%, 25%, and 14% in 2005 to 37%, 14%, and 7% in 2013 respectively. The result further indicates that 1% growth in crop productivity reduces the probability of poverty headcount ratio, poverty gap and poverty severity by 0.28%, 0.38% and 0.75% respectively in all agro-ecological zones. Additionally, the paper shows that education, livestock and remittance income reduces poverty, while household size and great distance to access water increase poverty differently from agro-ecology. The study recommends rapid crop productivity growth by prioritizing technology adoption and institutional coordination to suit agro-ecological conditions among the poor, illiterate and non-partisan.

Inclusiveness of Poverty Reduction: A Study of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana

This study examines the inclusiveness of poverty reduction among the newly formed states of undivided Andhra Pradesh by looking into the poverty among the different socio-religious groups both in the rural and urban regions during the 2000’s. The major proposition that has highlighted in this study: which socio-religious groups are more poverty ridden in the undivided Andhra Pradesh and its bifurcated states (Andhra Pradesh and Telangana)? The National Sample Survey Organisation unit level data (61st and 68th rounds) on Consumption Expenditure Survey have been used for the analysis. The result reveals that Telangana is having lower poverty level than Andhra Pradesh and records a faster reduction in poverty during 2004–2005 to 2011–2012. Andhra Pradesh constitutes around 70% of the total poor of the undivided Andhra Pradesh. This study found that most of the Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes among the social groups and Muslims among the religious groups are more vulnerable and having higher head count ratio than the state average. Although several welfare programmes and schemes have already been implemented to eradicate poverty and inequality, still it is not effective in the ground level. Based on this argument, our study suggests that the schemes should focus on different sections of the people irrespective of rural and urban sectors in both the recently bifurcated states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. JEL Codes: I 32, D 63, P 25

Alternative measures of Family Farm Viability – Incorporating gap measures

The measurement of farm economic viability has received intermittent academic interest with limited attention given to the conceptual framework surrounding the issue. This paper focuses attention on farm economic viability in Ireland where there are growing concerns about a two-tiered agricultural sector with increasing levels of economic vulnerability. The measurement of farm economic viability is usually based on the headcount ratio, which identifies whether a farm business is viable or non-viable and does not inform about the extent of non-viability. Therefore, it is necessary to develop alternative techniques to provide more clarity on viability levels and thereby inform assessments regarding the efficacy of the Common Agricultural Policy. This paper draws on concepts from the poverty literature to develop a viability gap measure and a viability severity measure. The results are sensitive to the choice of indicator and point to a wide distribution of viability between the most viable and least viable farms. The headcount ratio provides the basis for an incomplete assessment of viability levels and multiple indicators should be considered in monitoring viability levels.

The Counting Approach to Multidimensional Poverty: Evidence from South Asia

This study is about the inspection of the multidimensional poverty level and changes with time. Three sample countries (Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India) are taken from the South Asian Region to measure the depth of multidimensional poverty and inequality among the deprived individuals by using Alkire and Foster (2011) “Dimension Adjusted” or headcount ratio measure, Rippin (2010) Class of Ordinal Poverty measures, and Chakravarty and D’Ambrosio (2006) Class of Poverty measures. These all three approaches are counting-based approaches that are used on ordinal variables. The data of three main dimensions (Education, Health and Standard of Living) which is further divided into ten indicators is used for this study. The secondary data is used, which is extracted from Demographic Health Surveys (DHS). The last three surveys of DHS is used in this study, which was conducted in different period. Results of all three countries are compared and showed that India is having more poverty followed by Bangladesh and Pakistan. Change in inequality component among deprived individuals is recorded almost similar in all three sample countries. The finding of this study shows that all three techniques are providing insightful information about the depth and component inequality among deprived individuals.

The Mediating Roles of GDP on the Relationship Between Income Inequality and Life Expectancy

This study examined the mediation effect of gross domestic product (GDP) on the relationship between life expectancy and income inequality based on data from 23 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries for 2004 through 2014. To form a theoretical framework, Preston curve and Kuznets curve were employed. The study set up a mediation model with life expectancy as an outcome variable, GDP as a mediator variable, and three variables characterising income inequality as predictor variables: Gini index, income share held by highest 20%, and poverty headcount ratio at US$1.90 a day. The study found that GDP clearly mediates the effects of the predictor variables on life expectancy, although the magnitudes of the effects vary. This study takes an important initial step in exploring the mediation effect of GDP on the relationship between life expectancy and income inequality.

Does governance matter? Country-level determinants of operational risk

Abstract The severity and frequency of operational loss events show high variability across the globe. In this paper, we first examine the extent to which the quality of country-level governance measured by the Worldwide Governance Indicators explains cross-country variation of operational losses. We use the comprehensive database of SAS OpRisk Global for the period of 2008–2019 covering 132 countries and 8,144 loss events with a total loss amount of almost 490 billion USD. Our findings indicate that the governance indicators lost their explanatory power over the past decades, which contradicts the academic consensus and calls for new explanatory variables. To find these variables, we hypothesize that the changes are driven by some important megatrends such as economic development and technological advancement, globalization, and sustainability. Accordingly, we propose an extended model where the number of mobile subscribers, the export to GDP ratio, and the poverty headcount ratio were significant for the frequency. For severity, only GDP is a significant and robust explanatory variable. Investors, regulators, and analysts should, therefore, concentrate on these factors if they wish to model, manage, or mitigate operational risks.

Impact of socio and demographic factors on multidimensional poverty profile of smallholder arable crop farmers – evidence from Nigeria

PurposeThis paper evaluates the impact of socio and demographic factors on the multidimensional poverty of smallholder arable crop farming households in Nigeria.Design/methodology/approachData were drawn from the second wave of the LSMS-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture General Household Survey Panel 2012/2013. The methods adopted in analysing the data were descriptive statistics, Alkire and Foster Method (AFM) and logit regression model.FindingsThe result shows that 84.34% of the households were headed by a male while 80.26% of the respondents were married with a mean household size of seven persons. The multidimensional poverty of arable crop farm households in Nigeria is 0.60, while the adjusted headcount ratio (MPI) is 0.27, with an average intensity of 0.45. We found that deprivation in the dimension of living standard accounted for 45.5% of the overall multidimensional poverty index (MPI). The result of the logistic regression indicates that household location, gender, household size and non-farm income are negatively correlated to poverty. The factors that increase poverty among households are the age of the household head and access to extension services.Originality/valueThe study presents an alternative means of assessing poverty among smallholder arable crop farming households in Nigeria. This study recommends that policymakers should focus more on improving the living standard of arable crop farming households to reduce poverty in rural areas. Similarly, concerted efforts should be made towards providing adequate health care and improved sanitation, supply of electricity and educational training that goes beyond primary education for farming household members.

Nigeria's multidimensional poverty analysis: A subgroup and dimensional breakdown

This study is an attempt to analyze the nature of multidimensional poverty in Nigeria in the light of recent data. The study used data from the Nigerian standard of living and measurement survey (LSMS) 2018/2019 to estimate the overall MPI for Nigeria, which included six indices of deprivation from four dimensions: consumption, education, energy, and housing. The study also performed a decomposition of multidimensional poverty across Nigerian regions, as well as a dimensional breakdown of multidimensional poverty across Nigeria and across regions. According to the study, Nigeria's multidimensional poverty index is 0.34, with a headcount ratio of 0.64 when the deprivation cutoff is 1, implying that roughly 64 percent of Nigerians are poor in at least one of the four areas studied. The North West, North East, and North Central regions, on the other hand, account for the majority of Nigeria's multidimensional poverty, accounting for more than 70% of the country's total multidimensional poverty. The South West has the lowest poverty rate, followed by the South South and the South East. Deprivations in Education, Energy, Consumption, and Housing, according to the report, are the most significant contributors to MPI. The study recommends that policies aimed at reducing poverty must take into account the distribution of multidimensional poverty in Nigeria so as to be able to get to the targeted audience. Secondly, there is a need to improve investment in Education and Energy so as to reduce overall multidimensional poverty in Nigeria.

The succeeding trends and disparity in Poverty reduction of Rural Bangladesh

Bangladesh like other developing countries of the world has been striving to eradicate poverty after getting independence in 1971 and the country was considered as one of the poorest with about 70 percent poverty and only $200 per capita income in 1973-74. The present study analyses various data on poverty from the period 1971 to 2019 and finds that the country has reduced its poverty significantly to 10.5 percent in 2019 with more than $1909 per capita income. The poverty headcount ratio has decreased by more than 50% in the last 49 years. This study using National Households Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) data of various years and also using other international organizations’ poverty-related data tries to explore the poverty scenario of Bangladesh from 1974 to 2019 and to examine some new aspects of regional poverty in Bangladesh. The country has a great achievement in the absolute poverty reduction during these periods, but these poverty reduction trends are somewhat relatively lower than some neighboring countries (e.g India, Nepal, Bhutan). In addition, though the absolute poverty rate has been reduced at the national level (10.5% in 2019), the present study finds a huge disparity in poverty reduction at the regional level in Bangladesh. Poverty rates are still more than double as compared to the state poverty rate in some districts of Bangladesh. This paper shows that the regional inequalities, income inequalities, old aged people, widows, uneducated and unskilled labor, various tribal groups, and various forms of poverty throughout the life cycle are revealing disparity of poverty in the rural area of Bangladesh.

Incidence, depth and severity of food insecurity among farming households in Sokoto State, Nigeria

The paper examined the incidence, depth and severity of food insecurity among farming household in Sokoto, Nigeria. Data was collected with aid of questionnaire from a total of 440 farming households comprising of (220 beneficiaries and 220 non-beneficiaries of BOA) were randomly selected using four multistage sampling techniques. The data generated was analysed using FGT index. The result for the incidences of food insecurity as indicated by head count ratio shows that 39.55% and 48.18% of food insecure farming households beneficiary and nonbeneficiary respectively were not able to meet their recommended daily allowance (RDAs) which is 2,250 kcal valued at N278.40/person equivalent to 0.87 USD. The coefficient of food insecurity depth (gap) shows that 19% of beneficiary and 44% of non-beneficiary food insecure farming households are below the recommended daily calorie requirement. The severity of food insecurity shows that 3.6% of beneficiaries’ food insecure farming households are most food insecure in the study area as compared with 19% non-beneficiaries’ food insecure farming households. High incidence, depth and severity of food insecurity among non-beneficiary food insecure farming households, indicated that BOA has impacted on beneficiary farming households by increasing their food security status. Therefore, this study recommends financial policies that ensure financial support to farming households most especially non-beneficiary in the study area.

Energy poverty, health and education outcomes: Evidence from the developing world

This study critically examines the effect of energy poverty on health and education outcomes for 50 developing countries in the period 1990–2017. We construct an aggregate energy development index and empirically test if the effect on development outcomes is conditioned by thresholds determined by the degree of poverty and income per capita. Our empirical results show that lower energy poverty is associated with higher health and education outcomes. However, we find that access to electricity has a more substantial positive effect on development outcomes than energy use. The threshold regression estimates show that there is a greater effect of energy development index on life expectancy rates where the poverty headcount ratio is high. Conversely, energy development index has a greater effect on infant mortality rates where the poverty headcount ratio is low, or income per capita is high. We do not find a threshold effect of poverty and income per capita in the education sector. These findings have strong policy implications for developing countries, showing that a lack of access to electricity remains a critical obstacle for achieving greater economic development, and poverty plays a crucial role in shaping these countries' health outcomes.