The Lucky Few Amidst Economic Decline

Panel data sets show that a lucky few bucked the general trend of economic decline in Côte d'Ivoire -- that among the poorest of the poor, some actually improved their standard of living, despite a great increase in the incidence of poverty.

The world's ocean transport industry faces an unprecedented crisis. Fundamental changes in the seatrade markets and considerable discrepancies between tonnage supply and the demand for transport are the key reasons. The international fleet has become critically overaged and suffers from a deteriorating safety record. Serious retrenching and sharp long- term planning are needed but -- tampered by reduced freight earnings, rising insurance costs, and a shortage of investment capital.

This explores the complex nature of poverty in Africa. It identifies its political and social causes and assesses the impact of recent economic growth on the welfare of poor people. To permanently reduce poverty, it calls for realistic, home-grown policy initiative, governmental commitment, a realignment of the donor community's role, and the development of institutional structures, such as poverty monitoring systems, that can hold the governments accountable.

A collection of studies assembled from six countries - South Africa, China, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Chile - using household panel data to examine the issue of poverty. The studies suggest that populations often swing in and out of poverty due to changes in business and agriculture.

Prior work has shown that there is a significant amount of turnover amongst the African poor as households exit and enter poverty. Some of this mobility can be attributed to regular movement back and forth in response to exogenous variability in climate, prices, health, etc. ('churning'). Other crossings of the poverty line reflect permanent shifts in long-term well-being associated with gains or losses of productive assets or permanent changes in asset productivity due, for example, to adoption of improved technologies or access to new, higher-value markets. Distinguishing true structural mobility from simple churning is important because it clarifies the factors that facilitate such important structural change. Conversely, it also helps identify the constraints that may leave other households caught in a trap of persistent, structural poverty. The papers in this book help to distinguish the types of poverty and to deepen understanding of the structural features and constraints that create poverty traps. Such an understanding allows communities, local governments and donors to take proactive, effective steps to combat persistent poverty in Africa. This book was previously published as a special issue of the Journal of Development Studies.