How do movements in the distribution of income a¤ect the macroeconomy? Krusell and Smith (1998) analyzed this question in a neoclassical growth model, and their results show that the representative-agent assumption provides a good approximation for aggregate behaviors of heterogeneous agents. This paper extends their analysis to a cash-in-advance model with heterogeneous money demand. It is sho...

Rural People’s Perception of Poverty in China Subjective Poverty Line methodology is applied to rural China 2002 using a sample from 22 provinces. Respondents were asked two questions: one on amount of food necessary and another on amount of cash necessary for their households. The respondent’s perception of how much cash is needed varies profoundly and positively by income in the county where ...

Return on assets (ROA) from household enterprise is crucial for understanding the well-being and productivity of households in developing economies. Yet the definition and measurement of household enterprise ROA remain inconsistent or unclear. We illustrate potential measurement problems with examples from various actual surveys. We then take advantage of a detailed integrated household survey ...

INTRODUCTION: Governments throughout the developing world have a keen interest in diversifying their rural economies. One basis for this desire concern that reliance on a few crops for cash income can lead to instability in income that threatens rural livelihoods – has undoubtedly been accentuated by the worldwide price crises of 2007/08 and 2010/11. It is also true that, for many households th...

The economic status of the elderly improved greatly since the 1960s. This is true in terms of poverty rates, real cash income and broader income measures that include in-kind benefits. Yet, many older Americans remain at risk of economic deprivation, especially the less educated, those living alone, and the oldest old. Most elderly Americans rely heavily on Social Security and Medicare for th...

*Office of Research, Statistics, and International Policy, Office of Policy. Social Security Administration. made to replace such lost income totaled $16.4 billion, or 36 percent of the loss. This degree of protection against income loss from short-term sickness has been about the same since 1970. The number of workers protected by formal plans providing cash benefits for sickness in 1983 rose ...