Understanding Poverty Reduction in Sri Lanka : Evidence from 2002 to 2012/13

Ceriani, Lidia ; Inchauste, Gabriela ; Olivieri, Sergio

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: AVERAGING;    AGRICULTURAL SELF-EMPLOYMENT;    TAXES;    INCOME DISTRIBUTION;    RENT;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7446
RP-ID  :  WPS7446

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper quantifies the contributionsto poverty reduction observed in Sri Lanka between 2002 and2012/13. The methods adopted for the analysis generateentire counterfactual distributions to account for thecontributions of demographics, labor, and non-labor incomesin explaining poverty reduction. The findings show that themost important contributor to poverty reduction was growthin labor income, stemming from an increase in the returns tosalaried nonfarm workers and higher returns to self-employedfarm workers. Although some of this increase in earnings maypoint to improvements in productivity, defined as higherunits of output per worker, some of it may simply reflectincreases in food and commodity prices, which have increasedthe marginal revenue product of labor. To the extent thatthere have been no increases in the volumes being produced,the observed changes in poverty are vulnerable to reversalsif commodity prices were to decline significantly. Finally,although private transfers (domestic and foreign) helped toreduce poverty over the period, public transfers were not aseffective. In particular, the reduction in the real value oftransfers of the Samurdhi program during 2002 to 2012/13slowed down poverty reduction.