living standards

Quote of the week: Daniel Hannan

"The populists always fail in their own terms. Let me be more specific, the protectionists always fail. They always end up delivering the sharpest fall in living standards to the people who are their biggest supporters."

- Daniel Hannan - British politician, writer and journalist.

Quoted in Financial Times print edition January 28, 2017 "Lunch with the FT."

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Follow PublicSphereWB on Twitter!

#2 from 2016: The 2016 Multidimensional Poverty Index was launched last week. What does it say?

Our Top Ten blog posts by readership in 2016. This post was originally published on June 14, 2016.

This is at the geeky, number-crunching end of my spectrum, but I think it’s worth a look (and anyway, they asked nicely). The 2016 Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index was published yesterday. It now covers 102 countries in total, including 75 per cent of the world’s population, or 5.2 billion people. Of this proportion, 30 per cent of people (1.6 billion) are identified as multidimensionally poor.

The Global MPI has 3 dimensions and 10 indicators (for details see here and the graphic, right). A person is identified as multidimensionally poor (or ‘MPI poor’) if they are deprived in at least one third of the dimensions. The MPI is calculated by multiplying the incidence of poverty (the percentage of people identified as MPI poor) by the average intensity of poverty across the poor. So it reflects both the share of people in poverty and the degree to which they are deprived.

The MPI increasingly digs down below national level, giving separate results for 962 sub-national regions, which range from having 0% to 100% of people poor (see African map, below). It is also disaggregated by rural-urban areas for nearly all countries as well as by age.

Blog post of the month: The 2016 Multidimensional Poverty Index was launched last week. What does it say?

Each month People, Spaces, Deliberation shares the blog post that generated the most interest and discussion. In June 2016, the featured blog post is "The 2016 Multidimensional Poverty Index was launched last week. What does it say?" by Duncan Green.

This is at the geeky, number-crunching end of my spectrum, but I think it’s worth a look (and anyway, they asked nicely). The 2016 Multi-Dimensional Poverty Indexwas published yesterday. It now covers 102 countries in total, including 75 per cent of the world’s population, or 5.2 billion people. Of this proportion, 30 per cent of people (1.6 billion) are identified as multidimensionally poor.

The Global MPI has 3 dimensions and 10 indicators (for details see here and the graphic, right). A person is identified as multidimensionally poor (or ‘MPI poor’) if they are deprived in at least one third of the dimensions. The MPI is calculated by multiplying the incidence of poverty (the percentage of people identified as MPI poor) by the average intensity of poverty across the poor. So it reflects both the share of people in poverty and the degree to which they are deprived.

The MPI increasingly digs down below national level, giving separate results for 962 sub-national regions, which range from having 0% to 100% of people poor (see African map, below). It is also disaggregated by rural-urban areas for nearly all countries as well as by age.

The 2016 Multidimensional Poverty Index was launched last week. What does it say?

This is at the geeky, number-crunching end of my spectrum, but I think it’s worth a look (and anyway, they asked nicely). The 2016 Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index was published yesterday. It now covers 102 countries in total, including 75 per cent of the world’s population, or 5.2 billion people. Of this proportion, 30 per cent of people (1.6 billion) are identified as multidimensionally poor.

The Global MPI has 3 dimensions and 10 indicators (for details see here and the graphic, right). A person is identified as multidimensionally poor (or ‘MPI poor’) if they are deprived in at least one third of the dimensions. The MPI is calculated by multiplying the incidence of poverty (the percentage of people identified as MPI poor) by the average intensity of poverty across the poor. So it reflects both the share of people in poverty and the degree to which they are deprived.

The MPI increasingly digs down below national level, giving separate results for 962 sub-national regions, which range from having 0% to 100% of people poor (see African map, below). It is also disaggregated by rural-urban areas for nearly all countries as well as by age.

Are opportunities expanding for children in Africa?

Available in French

Not All That Glitters Is Gold

Gross Domestic Product, better known as GDP, is the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period. That's why GDP per capita is widely used as a summary indicator of living standards in a country. No wonder we keep our eyes closely on its evolution and compare its levels among countries.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs: Introducing the WDR 2013

Economic growth and global economic integration go hand-in-hand for Lao PDR. As a small, land-locked, and commodity-dependent country in a fast-expanding region, Lao PDR’s growth prospects are directly linked to its ability to integrate with the global economy. This is why the government has been prioritizing economic integration with both the Southeast Asia region and the multilateral rules-based trading system. In 2010, Lao PDR became signatory to the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA), acceded to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2013, and ratified the Trade Facilitation Agreement in 2015.

However, efforts to modernize Lao PDR’s regulatory framework governing trade and the overall investment climate have not been matched with welfare improvements. In a recent study, we provide a comparative overview of the landscape of Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs) affecting imports in Lao PDR, and identify lingering regulatory hurdles that hamper its ability to reap the gains of deeper integration with the global economy. Our findings reveal that while the existing NTM framework is broadly in line with regional practices (figure 1), the current import licensing scheme in Lao PDR and the associated array of fees linked to it raises the time and cost to bring products to market.Ultimately, the system of quantitative controls applied by Lao PDR is equivalent to an ad-valorem tariff of 5.4%, which is well above regional and world averages.

There are three main problems associated with the procedures for obtaining import licenses in Lao PDR:

living standards

Each month People, Spaces, Deliberation shares the blog post that generated the most interest and discussion. In June 2016, the featured blog post is "The 2016 Multidimensional Poverty Index was launched last week. What does it say?" by Duncan Green.

follow us

newsletter