Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-t5pn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T06:44:46.770Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Poverty, rural population distribution and climate change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 November 2017

Edward B. Barbier  and
Jacob P. Hochard
Edward B. Barbier*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Jacob P. Hochard
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and Institute for Coastal Science and Policy, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: edward.barbier@colostate.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Our spatial analysis indicates that in 2000 over one third of the rural population in developing countries was located on less favored agricultural land and areas, which are constrained by biophysical conditions or poor market access. We examine whether these spatial distributions of rural population in 2000 influence subsequent changes in the rate of poverty from 2000 to 2012 in 83 developing countries. We find no evidence of a direct impact on changes in poverty, but there is a significant indirect impact via the elasticity of poverty reduction with respect to growth. If climate change leads to more people concentrated in these areas, or an increase in unfavorable agricultural regions, then the poverty-reducing impact of overall per capita income growth could be further weakened. Reducing poverty will require targeting rural populations in less favored lands and remote areas and encouraging out-migration.

Keywords

Climate changedeveloping countriesless favored areaspopulation distributionpovertyspatial analysis
Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 23 , Special Issue 3: Poverty and Climate Change , June 2018 , pp. 234 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, RH Jr and Page, J (2005) Do international migration and remittances reduce poverty in developing countries? World Development 33(10), 1645–1669.Google Scholar
Angelsen, A and Dokken, T (2015) Environmental reliance, climate exposure, and vulnerability: a cross-sectional analysis of structural and stochastic poverty, Policy Research Working Paper 7474, World Bank, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Ansoms, A and McKay, A (2010) A quantitative analysis of poverty and livelihood profiles: the case of rural Rwanda. Food Policy 35(6), 584–598.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barbier, EB (2010) Poverty, development and environment. Environment and Development Economics 15(6), 635–660.Google Scholar
Barbier, EB, López, RE and Hochard, JP (2016) Debt, poverty and resource management in a rural smallholder economy. Environmental and Resource Economics 63(2), 411–427.Google Scholar
Barrett, CB (2008) Smallholder market participation: concepts and evidence from eastern and southern Africa. Food Policy 33(4), 299–317.Google Scholar
Barrett, CB and Bevis, LEM (2015) The self-reinforcing feedback between low soil fertility and chronic poverty. Nature Geoscience 8(12), 907–912.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Battacharya, H and Innes, R (2013) Income and the environment in rural India: is there a poverty trap? American Journal of Agricultural Economics 95(1), 42–69.Google Scholar
Bourguignon, F (2003) The growth elasticity of poverty reduction: explaining heterogeneity across countries and time periods. In TS, Eicher and Turnovsky, SJ (eds). Inequality and Growth: Theory and Policy Implications. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 3–26.Google Scholar
Carter, MR, Little, PD, Mogues, T and Negatu, W (2007) Poverty traps and natural disasters in Ethiopia and Honduras. World Development 35, 835–856.Google Scholar
CGIAR (TAC Secretariat) (1999) CGIAR study on marginal lands: report on the study on CGIAR research priority for marginal lands, Marginal Lands Study Paper No. 1, Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Rome.Google Scholar
Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture (CAWMA) (2008) Water for Food, Water for Life: A Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture. London: Earthscan and International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka.Google Scholar
Coomes, OT, Takasaki, Y and Rhemtulla, JM (2011) Land-use poverty traps identified in shifting cultivation systems shape long-term tropical forest cover. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108(304), 13925–13930.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Coxhead, I, Shively, GE and Shuai, X (2002) Development policies, resource constraints, and agricultural expansion on the Philippine land frontier. Environment and Development Economics 7(2), 341–364.Google Scholar
Dasgupta, S, Huq, M, Khan, ZH, Ahmed, MMZ, Mukherjee, N, Khan, MF and Pandey, K (2010) Vulnerability of Bangladesh to cyclones in changing climate: potential damages and adaptation cost, Policy Research Working Paper 5280, The World Bank, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Dasgupta, S, Laplante, B, Murray, S and Wheeler, D (2011) Exposure of developing countries to sea-level rise and storm surges. Climatic Change 106(4), 567–579.Google Scholar
Datt, G and Ravallion, M (1992) Growth and redistribution components of changes in poverty measures: a decomposition with applications to Brazil and India in the 1980s. Journal of Development Economics 38(2), 275–295.Google Scholar
Debela, B, Shively, GE, Angelsen, A and Wik, M (2012) Economic shocks, diversification, and forest use in Uganda. Land Economics 88(1), 139–154.Google Scholar
de Sherbinin, A (2014) Climate change hotspots mapping: what have we learned? Climatic Change 123, 23–37.Google Scholar
Dollar, D and Kraay, A (2002) Growth is good for the poor. Journal of Economic Growth 7(3), 195–225.Google Scholar
Emran, MS and Hou, Z (2013) Access to markets and rural poverty: evidence from household consumption in China. Review of Economics and Statistics 95(2), 682–697.Google Scholar
Fan, S and Chan-Kang, C (2004) Returns to investment in less-favoured areas in developing countries: a synthesis of evidence and implications for Africa. Food Policy 29(4), 431–444.Google Scholar
Fan, S and Hazell, P (2001) Returns to public investment in the less-favored areas of India and China. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 83(5), 1217–1222.Google Scholar
Ferreira, FHG (2012) Distributions in motion: economic growth, inequality, and poverty dynamics, chapter 13. In PN, Jefferson (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Poverty. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 427–462.Google Scholar
Gastwirth, JL (1971) A general definition of the Lorenz curve. Econometrica 39(6), 1037–1039.Google Scholar
Gerber, N, Nkonya, E and von Braun, J (2014) Land degradation, poverty and marginality, chapter 12. In von Braun, J and Gatzweiler, FW (eds). Marginality: Addressing the Nexus of Poverty, Exclusion and Ecology. Berlin: Springer, pp. 181–202.Google Scholar
Global Commission on the Economy and Climate (GCEC) (2014) The New Climate Economy Report, Chapter 3–Land Use. Better Growth, Better Climate. Available at http://static.newclimateeconomy.report/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/NCE_Chapter3_LandUse.pdfGoogle Scholar
Gollin, D and Rogerson, R (2014) Productivity, transport costs and subsistence agriculture. Journal of Development Economics 107, 38–48.Google Scholar
González-Vega, C, Rodríguez-Meza, J, Southgate, D and Maldonado, JH (2004) Poverty, structural transformation, and land use in El Salvador: learning from household panel data. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 86(5), 1367–1374.Google Scholar
Hallegatte, S, Bangalore, M, Bonanigo, L, Fay, M, Kane, T, Narloch, U, Rozenberg, J, Treguer, D and Vogt-Schilb, A (2015) Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty. Washington, DC: The World Bank.Google Scholar
Hallegatte, S, Vogt-Schilb, A, Bangalore, M and Rozenberg, J (2017) Unbreakable: Building the Resilience of the Poor in the Face of Natural Disasters, Climate Change and Development Series, Overview booklet, World Bank, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Holden, S, Shiferaw, B and Pender, J (2004) Non-farm income, household welfare, and sustainable land management in a less-favoured area in the Ethiopian highlands. Food Policy 29(4), 369–392.Google Scholar
Jalan, J and Ravallion, M (2002) Geographic poverty traps? A micro model of consumption growth in rural China. Journal of Applied Econometrics 17, 329–346.Google Scholar
Jansen, HGP, Rodriguez, A, Damon, A, Pender, J, Chenier, J and Schipper, R (2006) Determinants of income-earning strategies and adoption of conservation practices in hillside communities in rural Honduras. Agricultural Systems 88, 92–110.Google Scholar
Kakwani, N (1993) Poverty and economic growth with application to Côte d'Ivoire. Review of Income and Wealth 39(2), 121–139.Google Scholar
Kakwani, N and Pernia, EM (2000) What is pro-poor growth? Asian Development Review 16(1), 1–22.Google Scholar
Kraay, A (2006) When is growth pro-poor? Evidence from a panel of countries. Journal of Development Economics 80(1), 198–227.Google Scholar
Lambin, EF and Meyfroidt, P (2011) Global land use change, economic globalization, and the looming land scarcity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108(9), 3465–3472.Google Scholar
Lang, C, Barrett, CB and Naschold, F (2013) Targeting maps: an asset-based approach to geographic targeting. World Development 41, 232–244.Google Scholar
López-Feldman, A (2014) Shocks, income and wealth: do they affect the extraction of natural resources by households? World Development 64, S91–S100.Google Scholar
McSweeney, K (2005) Natural insurance, forest access, and compound misfortune: forest resources in smallholder coping strategies before and after Hurricane Mitch in northeastern Honduras. World Development 33(9), 1453–1471.Google Scholar
Narain, U, Gupta, S and van't Veld, K (2008) Poverty and resource dependence in rural India. Ecological Economics 66(1), 161–176.Google Scholar
Narloch, U and Bangalore, M (2016) Environmental risks and poverty: analyzing geo-spatial and household data from Vietnam, Policy Research Working Paper 7763, World Bank, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Nelson, A (2008) Travel time to major cities: a global map of accessibility, Global Environment Monitoring Unit–Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Ispra Italy. Available at http://gem.jrc.ec.europa.eu/.Google Scholar
Paul, SK and Routray, JK (2011) Household response to cyclone induced surge in coastal Bangladesh: coping strategies and explanatory variables. Natural Hazards 57(2), 477–499.Google Scholar
Pender, J and Hazell, P (2000) Promoting sustainable development in less-favored areas: overview, Brief 1. In Pender, J and Hazell, P (eds). Promoting Sustainable Development in Less-Favored Areas, 2020 Vision Initiative, Policy Brief Series, Focus 4. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. Brief 1, pp. 3–4.Google Scholar
Ravallion, M (1997) Can high-inequality developing countries escape absolute poverty? Economics Letters 56(1), 51–57.Google Scholar
Ravallion, M (2001) Growth, inequality and poverty: looking beyond averages. World Development 29(11), 1803–1815.Google Scholar
Ravallion, M (2012) Why don't we see poverty convergence? American Economic Review 102(1), 504–523.Google Scholar
Ravallion, M and Chen, S (1997) What can new survey data tell us about recent changes in distribution and poverty? World Bank Economic Review 11(2), 357–382.Google Scholar
Robinson, EJZ (2016) Resource-dependent livelihoods and the natural resource base. Annual Reviews of Resource Economics 8, 281–301.Google Scholar
Shively, GE and Fisher, M (2004) Smallholder labor and deforestation: a systems approach. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 86(5), 1361–1366.Google Scholar
Smeeding, T and Latner, JP (2015) PovcalNet, WDI and ‘all the Ginis’: a critical review. Journal of Economic Inequality 13(4), 603–629.Google Scholar
Son, HH and Kakwani, N (2008) Global estimates of pro-poor growth. World Development 36(6), 1048–1066.Google Scholar
World Bank (2003) World Development Report 2003. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
World Bank (2008) World Development Report 2008: Agricultural Development. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
World Bank (2014) World Development Indicators. Washington, DC: World Bank. Available at http://databank.worldbank.org/data/home.aspx.Google Scholar
Wunder, S, Börner, J, Shively, GE and Wyman, M (2014) Safety nets, gap filling and forests: a global-comparative perspective. World Development 64, S29–S42.Google Scholar
Zhang, X and Fan, S (2004) How productive is infrastructure? A new approach and evidence from rural India. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 86(2), 494–501.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Barbier and Hochard supplementary material

Appendix

Download Barbier and Hochard supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 1.1 MB