The unfairness of (poverty) targets

Melanie Allwine, Iamele Rigolini and Luis Lopez-Calva

Oxford Economic Papers, 2016, vol. 68, issue 2, 379-397

Abstract: The evaluation of policy performance against set targets is rarely adjusted to the heterogeneity in the initial distribution of characteristics. Building on previous literature, we propose a framework to account for differences in initial characteristics in evaluating policy performance. We apply the proposed framework to the appraisal of poverty reduction and show that initial characteristics can considerably affect performance. The framework advances by explicitly quantifying the importance of the non-linearity of the growth elasticity of poverty reduction. Whilst wealthier countries did perform better in reducing poverty during 1995–2008, after equalizing the mean of the initial distribution of income the situation reverses, with the poorest countries going from being the worse to being the best performers in poverty reduction.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oep/gpv066 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: The Unfairness of (Poverty) Targets (2013)
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:oup:oxecpp:v:68:y:2016:i:2:p:379-397.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Oxford Economic Papers is currently edited by James Forder and Francis J. Teal

More articles in Oxford Economic Papers from Oxford University Press Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().