The Impact of Food Inflation on Urban Poverty and Its Monetary Cost : Some Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations

Dessus, Sé ; bastien ; Herrera, Santiago ; de Hoyos, Rafael

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCOUNTING;    AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES;    AGRICULTURAL YIELDS;    AGRICULTURE;    BANK POLICY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4666
RP-ID  :  WPS4666

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 uses a sample of 73developing countries to estimate the change in the cost ofalleviating urban poverty brought about by the recentincrease in food prices. This cost is approximated by thechange in the poverty deficit, that is, the variation infinancial resources required to eliminate poverty underperfect targeting. The results show that, for mostcountries, the cost represents less than 0.1 percent ofgross domestic product. However, in the most severelyaffected, it may exceed 3 percent. In all countries, thechange in the poverty deficit is mostly due to the negativereal income effect of those households that were poor beforethe price shock, while the cost attributable to newhouseholds falling into poverty is negligible. Thus, incountries where transfer mechanisms with effective targetingalready exist, the most cost-effective strategy would be toscale up such programs rather than designing tools toidentify the new poor.