Well-being during a time of change: Timor-Leste on the path to independence

Kaspar Richter

No 3488, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: Countries undergoing fundamental economic and political transformations might experience differential adjustments in material well-being and empowerment. The author evaluates self-rated welfare and power changes in Timor-Leste covering the period prior to the 1999 referendum on independence from Indonesia to the eve of independence in end 2001. Drawing on the first nationally representative household survey and village census, he shows how subjective, objective, and recall information can be combined to provide a rich profile of trends in well-being from the pre- to post-conflict stage. The author’s analysis shows that changes in self-rated welfare and power broadly corresponded to changes recorded by objective indicators. While economic well-being improved little, empowerment increased dramatically. The changes were not uniform across the population but some groups benefited more than others. The evidence for Timor-Leste is consistent with these hypotheses: a) Economic resources increase welfare, and more than power; b) Social resources increase power, and more than welfare; c) Welfare winners have low initial economic resources; d) Power winners have high social resources; and e) Economic shocks reduce welfare and power, but welfare more than power.

Keywords: Insurance Law; Biodiversity; TF054599-PHRD-KYRGYZ REPUBLIC: WATER MANAGEMENT IMPROVEMENT PROJECT; Geographical Information Systems; Poverty Diagnostics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-01-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSC ... ered/PDF/wps3488.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3488

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().