Lifting the floor? Economic development, social protection and the developing World's poorest

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Margitic, Juan; Ravallion, Martin
• 署名单位: Georgetown University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2019.03.003
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 97-108
• 关键词: poverty; INEQUALITY; floor; social insurance; social assistance

摘要

It is theoretically ambiguous whether people in richer countries have a higher floor to their living standards. Nor is it clear whether social protection spending reaches the poorest and thus lifts the floor. Across countries, the paper finds that higher mean incomes come with a higher floor. The bulk of this is direct rather than via public spending on social protection. Social insurance (mainly public pensions) does the heavy lifting of the floor. Social assistance (mainly targeted cash-transfers) lifts the floor by only 1.5 cents per day on average, which is less than 10% of mean spending on social assistance.