How does labor market competitiveness frame the impact of greater labor productivity and lower inequality on poverty? Specifically, does greater competitiveness increase the impact of higher labor productivity and lower inequality on poverty reduction? In a simple model, we show that there is...

The effects of a minimum wage on employment and on poverty have been studied in the literature. This paper characterizes the poverty minimizing minimum wage, and shows how it depends on productivity, inequality and the degree of labor market competitiveness.

In many markets in developing countries, especially in remote areas, middlemen are thought to earn excessive profits. Non-profits come in to counter what is seen as middlemen's market power, and rich country consumers pay a "fair-trade" premium for products marketed by such non-profits. This...

A group of development analysts – researchers, activists, and practitioners - engaged in an unusual exercise in early 2004. They had a dialogue about labor market, trade and poverty issues, but they preceded the dialogue with exposure to the realities of the lives of six remarkable women in...

In January, 2005, a group of analysts and activists met in Gujarat at the invitation of SEWA to discuss papers presented at a conference on Membership Based Organizations of the Poor. The details of the conference are available at http://wiego.org/ahmedabad/. Somewhat unusually for academic...

Globalization and Economic Reform have enormous potential for economic growth and poverty reduction. But there are at least three troubling features of these phenomena that have emerged over the last two decades—technical change which is biased in favor of capital and skilled labor; increased...