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Poverty, Social development and protection
Economics, Poverty
Economics, Poverty
Health, Poverty, Social development and protection
Finance sector development, Poverty
Economics, Education, Finance sector development, Poverty
Economics, Finance sector development, Poverty, Social development and protection
Economics, Environment, Infrastructure, Population, Poverty, Social development and protection, Urban development
Economics, Education, Finance sector development, Governance and public sector management, Poverty, Social development and protection
Economics, Finance sector development, Poverty
Achieving a peaceful world: What can intellectuals do to make it happen?
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has brought the world together, although in a somewhat disturbing manner. Every individual on the planet is hoping for relief from the pandemic via a cure for the afflicted and a vaccine for prevention. Notwithstanding the urgency of addressing this immediate problem, the world economy and society should use this challenge to undertake initiatives that last longer and hopefully forever.
The impact of trade opening on developing Asia: Evidence and policy implications
Even though in aggregate, trade leads to economic gains, it almost always creates winners and losers. To design appropriate social protection policies, it is important to know the identities of these winners and losers. These policies need to be in place for equity reasons as well as to build and sustain support for free trade.
Structural transformation, growth, and inequality: Evidence from Viet Nam
Economic development and growth entail large-scale structural transformation of economies. Many Asian and African economies are now undergoing such structural transformation—typically from agriculture to manufacturing and service sectors. This transformation inevitably involves reallocation of workers from the primary sector to the manufacturing and service sectors. One of the important questions arising is whether such growth led by structural transformation helps the poor. On the one hand, growth may lift people out of poverty and therefore improve living standards for everyone. On the other hand, growth may increase income inequality by benefiting the rich more than the poor.
Is Indonesia’s subsidized rice program benefitting its children?
Indonesia’s subsidized rice program, RASKIN (also known as Operasi Pasar Khusus), constitutes the longest running and the largest in-kind transfer for poor households in Indonesia. In 2010, government expenditure on RASKIN accounted for 53% of the total household-targeted social assistance. What has been the impact of this program on child health in Indonesia? Our recent paper (Gupta and Huang 2018) is, in this regard, the first attempt in the literature to analyze this issue in the context of Indonesia.
Remittances as a trigger for postal financial inclusion
More than 1 billion adult Asians rely on the region’s 350,000 post offices. Over 2 million employees in more than 350,000 post offices and agents across Asia serve 1 billion of the 3.2 billion adults in the region (more than 57% of the world’s adult population) by providing basic financial services, including the receipt of remittances. The majority of the users live in rural communities or peri-urban areas, often at a considerable distance from bank branches, and consider post offices as an immediate access point to financial services.
What are the policy options for reversing productivity decline?
The world economy at present is in the middle of profound adjustment. Slow economic growth and obvious economic divisions are resulting in the self-fulfilling “low-growth trap”, while productivity is declining all over the world and income inequality is worsening at the country level. These trends have been interacting and blending with each other since the global financial crisis of 2008 and have triggered a vicious cycle that has become an obstacle to world economic recovery.
International remittances and poverty reduction
The World Bank (2014) estimates that international remittances to developing countries reached $436 billion in 2014. Remittances to the East Asia and the Pacific region and the South Asia region account for the largest and second-largest shares in the world. The authors examine the impact of international remittances on poverty reduction to determine whether such remittances contributed to a reduction in various indicators of poverty.
Housing policy in the Republic of Korea
This article evaluates housing policy in the Republic of Korea over the past 5 decades or so, and describes new challenges arising from the changing environment. The most pressing housing problem in the early phase of development of the Republic of Korea was an absolute shortage of housing. The country addressed this problem with the pragmatic approach of engaging the market using government intervention as leverage.
Costs of expanded public pension coverage in emerging Asia
The fiscal burden of public pensions in most emerging Asian economies is relatively small, reflecting relatively young populations and limited coverage of the retired-age population in public pension programs. Nonetheless, these conditions are likely to change dramatically in the coming decades. First, many Asian economies will face rapidly aging populations, which will raise pension and other old-age-related spending substantially. Second, as economies develop, political pressures to expand the coverage of public pensions and raise the level of pension benefits relative to income will likely increase.
Distortions, growth catch-up, and the middle-income trap
In theory, a distortion refers to a departure from the perfect competitive equilibrium with no externalities and in which resources have been optimally allocated so that each economic agent maximizes his or her own welfare. Thus, distortions are closely associated with market imperfections. In reality, an economy with no distortions does not exist—both advanced and developing economies use government interventions, such as stabilization policies, development strategies, industrial policies, administrative regulations, and so forth, which can be viewed as distortions, broadly defined.
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