DOI: 10.32609/j.ruje.8.81710

Authors: Elena A. Nazarbaeva, Alina I. Pishnyak, Natalia V. Khalina

Abstract: This article focuses on Multidimensional poverty index (MPI)—the alternative approach to poverty measurement. While the official monetary approach is based on a comparison of income with a certain poverty line (until 2021 in Russia it was based on the minimum subsistence level, since 2021 it has been calculated as a share of median income of the population), the MPI also includes deprivations that poor people may face. The text contains the description of the index calculation methodology, the results of its computation on Russian data (Statistical Survey of Income and Participation in Social Programs-2017), and the description of vulnerable groups of population in accordance with the MPI. Population groups that are identified as being at risk of poverty (according to the index) are similar to the vulnerable population based on the absolute monetary poverty approach. However, the index widens the list of such groups, covering older people and people with disabilities.

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DOI: 10.32609/j.ruje.8.79738

Authors: Thuy Ngoc Nguyen, Tuyen Quang Tran, Huong Van Vu

Abstract: Vietnam is a country that found itself at the center of the Indochina wars and was subjected to the most intense aerial bombing in history. However, little research has been done on the effect of unexploded ordnance (UXO) contamination on household livelihoods in rural Vietnam. In this paper, we investigate the contaminating effect of unexploded ordnance on households. Livelihood choices are classified by cluster analysis techniques, and unexploded ordnance contamination is measured at the district level by the proportion of land at risk from unexploded bombs and mines. We examine the effect of UXO contamination on livelihood choices using a multinomial logit model, controlling for various important household and regional level characteristics. It was found that households in districts with greater contamination were less likely to adopt a formal wage-earning livelihood, characterized by higher income and less poverty, than they were to engage in an agricultural livelihood. This suggests that the Indochina wars have had a long-running effect, reducing the likelihood of non-farm diversification, which in turn diminishes economic well-being among rural households in Vietnam.

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DOI: 10.32609/j.ruje.5.49296

Authors: Ben Slay, Tahmina Anvarova

Abstract: This paper focuses on how questions of inequalities in middle-income countries in Europe and Central Asia are dealt with in three recent studies: the EBRD’s “Transition Report 2016–17”; the World Bank’s 2018 study “Toward a new social contract: Taking on distributional tensions in Europe and Central Asia”; and UNDP’s “Regional human development report 2016. Progress at risk: Inequalities and human development in Eastern Europe, Turkey, and Central Asia.” While the three studies differ in terms of objectives, conceptual frameworks, country coverage, data and indicators, and policy recommendations, they also share important commonalities — particularly in terms of creating “regional” inequality narratives for transition economies, reconciling official data with common perceptions of inequalities in the region; improving data quality, quantity and availability, and changes in tax and social policies.

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