Assessing poverty with survey data. Uni-dimensional, multidimensional and resilience poverty analysis in Kenya

Traditionally Poverty has been measured by a unique indicator, income, assuming this was the most relevant dimension of poverty. Sen’s approach has dramatically changed this idea shedding light over the existence of many more dimensions and over the multifaceted nature of poverty; poverty cannot be represented by a unique indicator that only can evaluate a specific aspect of poverty. This thesis tracks an ideal path along with the evolution of the poverty analysis. Starting from the unidimensional analysis based on income and consumptions, this research enter the world of multidimensional analysis. After reviewing the principal approaches, the Foster and Alkire method is critically analyzed and implemented over data from Kenya. A step further is moved in the third part of the thesis, introducing a new approach to multidimensional poverty assessment: the resilience analysis.

Poverty and Mental Health. Tangible and Intangible Aspects of Microcredit

Microcredit, a small lending system, invests on an individual's creativity by stimulating the development of their own potential. This process leads to the attainment of various objectives which in turn allow individuals to develop their skill awareness. Consequently, this process also increases an individual’s self-esteem and self-confidence. These factors play an important role in the aetiology of a number of mental disorders. Namely, those characterized by a series of psychological conditions which impede the full development of a person’s personal, relational and social sphere. Furthermore, since Microcredit is thought to produce tangible goods, such as income, and intangible goods, such as self-esteem and mutual trust, it could also represent an innovative socio-economic tool. We therefore also hypothesize that, Microcredit would be valuable in maximizing abilities/skills in those subjects who are financially excluded and rarely perceived as a ‘resource’ for the Community The longitudinal study set the impact of the Grameen Bank microcredit program on new borrowers women from Noakhali District at the south Bangladesh. The impact evaluation assessment has been structured to detect individual, family and social changes. Manova Analysis allowed distinguishing from women with positive or negative outcomes related to the loan performance. Data revealed consistent differences in terms of economical outcomes and psychological well being amongst the groups of subject analyzed. The data gathered in relation to the changes arisen in the individuals should be looked into through future, continuous and systematic, monitoring.

Agrofood chain analysis: production, commercialisation and consumption of healthy food for population at risk of poverty in Italy

Italy registers a fast increase of low income population. Academics and policy makers consider income inequalities as a key determinant for low or inadequate healthy food consumption. Thus the objective is to understand how to overcome the agrofood chain barriers towards healthy food production, commercialisation and consumption for population at risk of poverty (ROP) in Italy. The study adopts a market oriented food chain approach, focusing the research ambit on ROP consumers, processing industries and retailers. The empirical investigation adopts a qualitative methodology with an explorative approach. The actors are investigated through 4 focus groups for consumers and carrying out 27 face to face semi-structured interviews for industries and retailers’ representatives. The results achieved provide the perceptions of each actor integrated into an overall chain approach. The analysis shows that all agrofood actors lack of an adequate level of knowledge towards healthy food definition. Food industries and retailers also show poor awareness about ROP consumers’ segment. In addition they perceive that the high costs for producing healthy food conflict with the low economic performances expected from ROP consumers’ segment. These aspects induce a scarce interest in investing on commercialisation strategies for healthy food for ROP consumers. Further ROP consumers show other notable barriers to adopt healthy diets caused, among others, by a personal strong negative attitude and lack of motivation. The personal barriers are also negatively influenced by several external socio-economic factors. The solutions to overcome the barriers shall rely on the improvement of the agrofood chain internal relations to identify successful strategies for increasing interest on low cost healthy food. In particular the focus should be on improved collaboration on innovation adoption and marketing strategies, considering ROP consumers’ preferences and needs. An external political intervention is instead necessary to fill the knowledge and regulations’ gaps on healthy food issues.

The Road to Poverty Reduction: Corporate Governance and Female Participation in MFIs

1.Microfinance Industry – Context of Analysis. This paper is an introduction to the microfinance industry. It serves as a context of analysis, for the empirical settings and basis for building the theoretical argument for the thesis. 2.Women in Microfinance Institutions: The Road to Poverty Reduction and Gender Equality? One of the unique aspects of microfinance institutions is their focus on outreach, i.e. their ability to reach the poor. This paper explores whether the presence of women in microfinance institutions is associated with improved outreach. Building on prior research that shows that women tend to improve financial performance and social responsibility, we examine an original dataset of 226 microfinance institutions. The empirical results suggest that the presence of a female CEO, female managers and female loan officers is directly related to improved outreach, while the presence of women board members is not. 3. Women in Microfinance Institutions: Is There a Trade-Off Between Outreach and Sustainability? Abstract This paper’s contribution to the understanding of microfinance is two-fold. First, while it has been shown that female CEOs in MFIs increase financial performance, it will be argued that female managers, female loan officers and female board members will do the same. Secondly, having previously shown that having a female presence in management in MFIs improves social performance the outreach, it will be argued that having females in the MFIs’ management will not lead to a trade-off between outreach and sustainability. These findings are based on an original data set of 226 MFIs. Statistical analysis demonstrates that a weak relationship between female managers and female loan officers vis-à-vis financial performance, but female board members do not. The trade-off between outreach and sustainability can be avoided with the appointment of females to the MFIs’ management positions, but the same cannot be concluded for female board members.

Inequality of income and poverty persistence in the Municipality of Bologna: a cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis through administrative data

This work is part of a project promoted by Emilia-Romagna that aims at encouraging research activities in order to support the innovation strategies of the regional economic system through the exploitation of new data sources. To gain this scope, a database containing administrative data is provided by the Municipality of Bologna. This is achieved by linking data from the Register Office of the Municipality and fiscal data coming from the tax returns submitted to the Revenue Agency and released by the Ministry of Economy and Finance for the period 2002-2017. The main purpose of the project is the analysis of the medium term financial and distributional trends of income of the citizens residing in the Municipality of Bologna. Exploiting this innovative source of data allow us to analyse the dynamics of income at municipal level, overcoming the lack of information in official survey-based statistic. We investigate these trends by building inequality indicators and by examining the persistence of in-work poverty. Our results represent an important informative element to improve the effectiveness and equity of welfare policies at the local level, and to guide the distribution of economic and social support and urban redevelopment interventions in different areas of the Municipality.

Escaping the debt trap: peripheral countries in prolonged debt crises and how to exit

This thesis is an interdisciplinary piece of academic research, situated within Critical Theory but engaging with other disciplines, mainly Political Economy and Politics, to tackle the topic at hand; sovereign debt crises. The thesis deals with the Problem of Debt and, more specifically, the Problem of Prolonged Sovereign Debt Crises, which is described in this thesis as the phenomenon of the “Debt Trap”. The specific question that will occupy us in this thesis is why countries appear unable to exit these prolonged debt crises. By exiting a debt crisis, we mean here a state of affairs in which a country has managed to render its debt sustainable, regain its democratic sovereignty, achieve economic recovery and, what is more, mitigate adverse effects of the crisis, especially in what human development, social inequality and poverty rates are concerned. This question is tackled through the use of an interdisciplinary approach that combines critical theory perspectives -which are grouped in two paradigms, the Subjectivity paradigm and the genealogies of Capitalism paradigm- with financialisation literature. The purpose is to form an interdisciplinary intellectual framework that will allow us to analyse with a critical perspective the two case studies of the Greek crisis from 2009 to 2015 and the Argentinean crisis from 1983 to 2005. The aim of the thesis is to develop a theoretical framework that allows us to deconstruct the various ideological approaches to these two particular cases of Debt traps, including neoclassical and neoliberal approaches, Conservative and Keynesian approaches and uncover the political, economic and class relation that underpin the prolonged crises that the two countries have experienced.