Esse trabalho apresenta as informações referentes ao comportamento de várias categorias de gastos, com destaque para o padrão de despesa e de aquisição física familiar com alimentos consumidos no domicílio, caracterizados como alimentos normais, orgânicos e light/diet, segundo as diferentes classes econômicas (alta, média e baixa). Também foram obtidas as elasticidades-renda da despesa e do consumo físico (kg) de vários itens de alimentos orgânicos e light/diet, comparando-as com os valores obtidos das elasticidades dos mesmos alimentos e/ou grupos de alimentos normais. Usando os dados da Pesquisa de Orçamentos Familiares - POF 2008-2009, a população é dividida em três classes econômicas, a partir de uma metodologia que maximiza a desigualdade entre estratos, ou minimiza a desigualdade dentro dos estratos. Já o método econométrico usado na estimativa das elasticidades consiste em calcular a despesa média em dez classes de renda familiar per capita e ajustar uma função poligonal com três segmentos mostrando como o logaritmo da despesa per capita média por classe varia em função do logaritmo da renda per capita. Constata-se que para os domicílios de classe baixa a alimentação tem um peso maior no orçamento familiar e o padrão dietético é mais restrito...

Esta dissertação de mestrado trata da ocupação urbana contemporânea pelos moradores de média e alta renda em áreas de proteção ambiental. O tema central desse estudo traz como discussão a tensão entre legislação e mercado imobiliário. Ao utilizar os atributos naturais, a aprazibilidade das áreas verdes e a proximidade do centro das grandes cidades, o mercado imobiliário tende a transformar os bens ambientais em mercadoria. A ação do mercado imobiliário também ocorre a partir da falta de fiscalização, lacunas e incongruências entre a legislação federal, estadual e municipal. A tensão entre legislação e mercado imobiliário traz como consequência a privatização de áreas de uso comum da população, aumento da poluição dos rios, diminuição de áreas verdes e ocupação desordenada no território. Somada a essa problemática, a tensão entre legislação e mercado imobiliário contribui para o aumento da ilegalidade urbana e com processos de segregação sócioespaciais entre as populações de baixa, média e alta renda. Esse estudo tem como objeto empírico a Ilha Grande dos Marinheiros, situada no bairro Arquipélago, em Porto Alegre, e integrante da Área de Proteção Ambiental Estadual do Delta do Jacuí. O marco temporal é a partir do ano de 2000...

Small scale fishing profits in two communities in the Upper Paraná River floodplain (Porto Rico - PRI and Porto São José - PSJ villages) are assessed based on interviews carried out with professional fishermen. There is a high illiteracy level in both PRI (50%) and PSJ (44.5%). The main contributions to income are "vessel costs" and "fish consumption" by the family. Specific tackle (such as cevadeira) and gear used for fishing close to dams make the gear costs higher at PSJ, emphasising the heterogeneity of the activity. The majority of fishermen in both villages have income complementation activities associated with tourism, because floodplain fishing is not a profitable occupation with any poverty alleviation capacity. Since the ecosystem is seriously disrupted, nowadays fishers are vulnerable to high oscillations in costs and income due to uncertainty in catches aggravated by flood control of the dams.

This study examined the relation of low income and poverty to cortisol levels, and tested potential pathways from low income to disruptions in cortisol through cumulative family risk and parenting. The sample of 306 mothers and their preschool children included 29 % families at or near poverty, 27 % families below the median income, and the remaining families at middle and upper income. Lower income was related to lower morning cortisol levels, and cumulative risk predicted a flatter diurnal slope, with a significant indirect effect through maternal negativity, suggesting that parenting practices might mediate an allostatic effect on stress physiology.

Includes bibliography; This paper estimates the distributional effects that would result from eliminating the differential tax treatment of business and personal income in the Chilean tax system, as well as from the elimination of the main personal income tax exemption, the one for voluntary retirement savings. The results of the analysis show that, while the majority of taxpayers benefitting from this exemption are in the upper income brackets, its elimination would not make the income tax more progressive. As to removing the favourable tax treatment for corporate income, the distributional effect is of relevant magnitude and the income tax becomes significantly more progressive. Generally speaking, the results suggest that income taxation in Chile is less progressive than it appears and that it is feasible to give it a more important redistributional role in reducing income inequality.

This paper discusses some of the key characteristics of the U.S. subprime mortgage boom and bust, contrasts them with characteristics of emerging mortgage markets, and makes recommendations for emerging market policy makers. The crisis has raised questions in the minds of many as to the wisdom of extending mortgage lending to low and moderate income households. It is important to note, however, that prior to the growth of subprime lending in the 1990s, U.S. mortgage markets already reached low and moderate-income households without taking large risks or suffering large losses. In contrast, in most emerging markets, mortgage finance is a luxury good, restricted to upper income households. As policy makers in emerging market seek to move lenders down market, they should adopt policies that include a variety of financing methods and should allow for rental or purchase as a function of the financial capacity of the household. Securitization remains a useful tool when developed in the context of well-aligned incentives and oversight. It is possible to extend mortgage lending down market without repeating the mistakes of the subprime boom and bust.

The paper presents a newly compiled and improved database of national household surveys between 1988 and 2008. In 2008, the global Gini index is around 70.5 percent having declined by approximately 2 Gini points over this twenty year period. When it is adjusted for the likely under-reporting of top incomes in surveys by using the gap between national accounts consumption and survey means in combination with a Pareto-type imputation of the upper tail, the estimate is a much higher global Gini of almost 76 percent. With such an adjustment the downward trend in the Gini almost disappears. Tracking the evolution of individual country-deciles shows the underlying elements that drive the changes in the global distribution: China has graduated from the bottom ranks, modifying the overall shape of the global income distribution in the process and creating an important global "median" class that has transformed a twin-peaked 1988 global distribution into an almost single-peaked one now. The "winners" were country-deciles that in 1988 were around the median of the global income distribution...

This sector report on Challenges and Priorities for Rural Development analyzes why Upper Egypt has lagged behind the rest of the country and to help the Government of Egypt and stakeholders to define a framework for interventions to promote broad-based economic growth and human development that will reach the poor and improve welfare in rural Upper Egypt. To achieve this objective, the strategic framework for intervention proposed here has two dimensions. The first is to foster broad-based economic growth based on agricultural development and off-farm activities. The second is to enhance access to basic infrastructure and services by promoting local level planning and civil society engagement.

This study examines the causes and effects of low enrollment and high dropout rates at the upper secondary level in Mexico, where upper secondary completion rates are well below those of other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries and the regional average. Through a disaggregated analysis of coverage, absorption, and dropout data in secondary education at the state level, the study categorizes states according to the stage in the educational cycle at which dropout primarily occurs. The study further examines the academic, social, and economic consequences of dropout through an analysis of employment and youth survey data. The analysis of factors associated with dropout uses self-reported factors as well as estimated probit models that use household data from national surveys and the national standardized test. The central conclusion reached is that in addition to the patterns of dropout found, multiple elements intersect with the patterns to form a complex panorama. Key findings include: i) personal...

Background: Previous data collected in separate studies using various different survey instruments have suggested some variability in the prevalence of symptoms between nations. However, there is a lack of studies which assess and compare the prevalence of upper gastrointestinal symptoms contemporaneously in various countries using a uniform, standardised method. Aim: To determine the prevalence of upper gastrointestinal (UGI) symptoms in 13 European countries, and the association between socioeconomic factors and symptoms using a standardised method. Methods: A representative age- and gender-stratified sample of 23 163 subjects (aged 18–69 years) was surveyed. Results: The prevalence of UGI symptoms was 38%. UGI symptoms were most prevalent in Hungary [45%, 95% confidence interval (CI): 42.2–48.4] and lowest in the Netherlands (24%, 95% CI: 21.0–26.2). UGI symptoms were more prevalent in women (39%, 95% CI: 38.4–39.6) vs. men (37%, 95% CI: 36.4–37.6). Heartburn (24%, 95% CI: 23.4–24.6) and acidic reflux (14%, 95% CI: 13.6–14.4) were most common. With age, the prevalence of UGI symptoms decreased (e.g. 18–29 years: 43%, 95% CI: 41.4–44.3 vs. 50–69 years: 33%, 95% CI: 32.3–34.4); in contrast, the frequency of symptom episodes/year increased with age (e.g. 18–29 years: 11.3 episodes per years...

Many Central and Eastern European countries are adopting flat tax schemes in order to boost their economies and tax revenues. Though there are signs that some countries do manage to improve on both fronts, it is in general hard to distinguish the behavioral response to tax changes from the effect of increased tax enforcement. This paper addresses this gap by estimating the elasticity of taxable income in Hungary, one of the outliers in terms of not having a flat tax scheme. We analyze taxpayer behavior using a medium-scale tax reform episode in 2005, which changed marginal and average tax rates but kept enforcement constant. We employ a Tax and Financial Control Office (APEH) panel dataset between 2004 and 2005 with roughly 215,000 taxpayers. Our results suggest a relatively small but highly significant tax price elasticity of about 0.06 for the population earning above the minimum wage (around 70% of all taxpayers). This number increases to around 0.3 when we focus on the upper 20% of the income distribution, with some income groups exhibiting even higher elasticities (0.45). We first demonstrate that such an elasticity substantially modifies the response of government revenues to the 2004-2005 tax changes, and then quantify the impact of a hypothetical flat income tax scheme. Our calculations indicate that though there is room for a parallel improvement of budget revenues and after-tax income...

The ability to accurately monitor poverty trends is crucial to ensure the adoption of effective antipoverty policies and to assess progress toward the achievement of national development goals. In Niger, efforts to assess poverty dynamics between 2005 and 2011 are complicated by methodological differences in the three household surveys conducted over the period, in 2005, 2007-08 and 2011. While Niger’s overall poverty rate has dropped significantly between 2005 and 2011, changes in the poverty incidence are highly uneven across location types. Among the major causes of persistent poverty are the country’s minimal economic diversification and extremely limited agricultural infrastructure, which leave the majority of Nigerien households dependent on highly vulnerable farming and livestock production. In addition, the country’s extremely high rate of population growth presents a serious obstacle to sustainable poverty reduction. Not only does Niger have one of the highest population growth rates in the world...

This thesis is intended to demonstrate a strategy for the creation of mixed income housing in the City of New York as an alternative not only to the upper income cooperative and condominium schemes of the 1980's which do not respond to current housing demands but also to the perennially unpopular, albeit necessary low income housing projects. In the interest of providing a low-impact solution which effectively mediates between speculative concerns and sensitivity to the identity and character of existing neighborhoods, inspiration was derived from unconventional sources. The low profile occupation tactics employed by squatters, artists and the homeless have been applied to the creation of a series of experimental shelter and circulation prototypes which ultimately inform the design of a mixed income housing project to be sited on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

The report examines the pension system in Mauritius, a country which over the past two decades, has made enormous progress in economic development, and poverty reduction, and which today, is facing a much earlier demographic transition in its development cycle, than other upper income, and high income countries have experienced. The questions being addressed are whether the current pensions arrangements will be financially sustainable, given the projected ageing of the population, and whether they will be equitable and efficient, at a time when the system will be relied on by a growing number of people. Mauritius has a three-tiered pension system that helps the poor, and provides moderate (although declining, in the case of the private sector) replacement income for working people, and no regulatory protection for voluntary retirement schemes. The un-funded nature of the universal scheme, together with the income maintenance scheme of the civil service, are endangering the country's economic stability. At the same time...

This report investigates Egypt's regional economic growth, explores the causes for geographically unbalanced development, and proposes policy options to make unbalanced growth compatible with inclusive development. Regional disparities in income and consumption may be attributed to differences in natural endowments and geographical location, but unbalanced growth is mostly due to economies of scale, spillover effects, and the lower transaction costs that result from agglomeration. In Egypt, despite rapid progress in most welfare indicators in lagging regions, there are still substantial gaps in consumption and opportunities between growth poles and the rest of the country. Adopting integration as a development platform is not simple because spatial disparities are spanned in three dimensions: urban/rural dichotomies, the upper Egypt/lower Egypt duality, and the differences between large metropolises and the rest of the country. This typology of instruments underlies the menu of options presented in this report as the basis of domestic spatial integration as a development platform to achieve more balanced and equitable development without sacrificing growth. This report first identifies the gaps in consumption and in opportunities...

This report considers the current status of upper primary school education in India. It looks at future impacts and recognizes the national level focus on elementary education. The importance of specific contexts in defining how states fulfill their constitutional responsibilities in upper primary education are studied. The report is based upon two studies whose findings include: length, structure & organization vary across and within states; the transition rate between primary and upper primary is high; transition rates and enrollment are lower for girls; school place is provided for current, but not future, demand; private unaided school enrollment is increasing; state qualification policies for teachers are not always relevant to instruction needs; in-service teacher training is very limited; discontinuity exists for curricula and subject weight between primary and upper primary schools; information overloads exist in syllabi, textbooks, and classroom processes; upper primary grades are cheaper when combined within an elementary school; a constitutional requirement for decentralized educational management exists; and expenditures need to increase before universalization of elementary education. Specific recommendations are given. Expansion and improvement of upper primary schooling...

This report investigates Egypt's regional economic growth, explores the causes for geographically unbalanced development, and proposes policy options to make unbalanced growth compatible with inclusive development. In Egypt, despite rapid progress in most welfare indicators in lagging regions, there are still substantial gaps in consumption and opportunities between growth poles and the rest of the country. This report's central proposal is adopting spatial integration as a development platform, in which the policy focus shifts from spreading out industrial location to spreading out access to basic public services and facilitating factor mobility, which will make growth more inclusive and development more balanced in Egypt. Egypt's new political environment provides an opportunity to examine this perennial problem from a new perspective. Adopting integration as a development platform is not simple because spatial disparities are spanned in three dimensions: urban/rural dichotomies, the upper Egypt/lower Egypt duality...

This study examines the demographic, socioeconomic, and cultural circumstances of young men and young women (aged 15-29) in Upper Egypt. Where appropriate, comparison is made with the rest of the country. It explores the perceptions of young men and women regarding the challenges and opportunities they face as they attempt to gain access to education, employment, services, and civic engagement. More broadly, the study explores their views on the factors that facilitate or limit their inclusion in the society and economy of Upper Egypt. This report focuses on two main transitions of young Upper Egyptians: the transition from school to work, and the transition to active citizenship and civic engagement. The study also briefly considers young people's engagement in the January 25th Revolution and their aspirations for the future in its aftermath. It concludes by offering recommendations for youth-inclusive policies that could expand the scope of employment and participation opportunities currently available to young people. The focus of the study being on Upper Egypt...

Este trabalho analisa o impacto do salário mínimo sobre a distribuição dos rendimentos no setor agrícola brasileiro entre os anos de 1995 e 2012. Mais precisamente, estuda o efeito do salário mínimo na determinação do rendimento de diferentes categorias de trabalhadores agrícolas, quais sejam: empregados permanentes com ou sem carteira, empregados temporários com ou sem carteira e trabalhadores por conta-própria. Nos últimos 18 anos, o salário mínimo real apresentou crescimento sistemático com efeitos importantes sobre os rendimentos no mercado de trabalho. Paralelamente, observou-se, no Brasil, um movimento sem precedentes, que combinou o crescimento econômico com a redução da desigualdade, tanto quando se analisam os rendimentos do trabalho como o rendimento domiciliar per capita. Evidências empíricas mostraram que o SM foi um dos fatores que contribuiu para a redução da desigualdade, porém seu efeito é distinto quando são considerados as categorias de empregados agrícolas. Utilizando estatísticas descritivas e dois métodos não-paramétricos (densidades de kernel e regressões quantílicas) aplicados aos dados da PNAD/IBGE, o trabalho mostra que para os empregados sem carteira no setor agrícola o SM tem impacto concentrador...

Income and wealth distribution affect stability of a society to a large extent and high inequality affects it negatively. Moreover, in the case of developed countries, recently has been proven that inequality is closely related to all negative phenomena affecting society. So far, Econophysics papers tried to analyse income and wealth distribution by employing distributions such as Fermi-Dirac, Bose-Einstein, Maxwell-Boltzmann, lognormal (Gibrat), and exponential. Generally, distributions describe mostly income and less wealth distribution for low and middle income segment of population, which accounts about 90% of the population. Our approach is based on a totally new distribution, not used so far in the literature regarding income and wealth distribution. Using cumulative distribution method, we find that polynomial functions, regardless of their degree (first, second, or higher), can describe with very high accuracy both income and wealth distribution. Moreover, we find that polynomial functions describe income and wealth distribution for entire population including upper income segment for which traditionally Pareto distribution is used.; Comment: polynomial distribution