Poverty in developing countries

Poverty: Empirical observations We now turn to the data to get a sense of the extent of poverty and the characteristics of the poor. We begin with a universal poverty line to facilitate cross-country comparison. Be aware that this is a tricky business. We already […]

Elasticities of calorie demand

Elasticities of calorie demand with respect to household budget, arranged in ascending order. Source: Behrman, Foster, and Rosenzweig [1994, Table 1]. aCalorie elasticity is estimated at the sample means. bBudget was measured by household income. cBudget was measured by household expenditure. dThe first entry pertains […]

Sibling Rivalry Evidence from Ghana

Sibling Rivalry: Evidence from Ghana As in many other low-income economies, parents in Ghana often invest less in the human capital of their daughters than their sons. Primary school enrollments are fairly even, but by secondary school only 28% of females between age 16 and […]

 The adjustment of birth rates

 The adjustment of birth rates Macro- and micro-inertia The preceding story of the demographic transition relies on an enormously important feature—the well-documented failure of the birth rate to instantly chase the death rate downward. Recall from the previous section that the main impetus to the […]