Past Research Projects

Analyses of Multifaceted Poverty Dynamics in Indonesia

1. Measurements and Determinants of Multifaceted Poverty: Absolute, Relative and Subjective Poverty in Indonesia

The perception of "poverty" is diversified and dynamic. It varies across countries with different socio-economic norms. A country may be struggling with absolute poverty at the early stages of development, while it may well be more concerned with relative and/or subjective poverty as its average per-capita income increases. This research using the National Socio Economic Survey (Susenas) 2005 intends to conduct comparative studies of multiple poverty measures by looking into the objective/absolute, relative and subjective poverty incidence in Indonesia. This paper aims at addressing the following three main questions: 1) How different are the poverty outcomes if five different metrics of poverty are used? 2) What are the key determinants of absolute, relative and subjective poverty? And 3) Are the socio-economic indicators of reference group (neighbors) correlated with households' assessment of their subjective poverty?

2. Intra-generation Poverty Dynamics in Indonesia

It is generally acknowledged that poverty is not a purely static phenomenon; it involves human beings, who by nature change over time. There is always a chance that at some point in the future households who are currently not poor may fall below the poverty line because of events such as economic crisis, crop loss, job loss, death and other shocks. However, there are also possibilities for households who are currently poor to escape from poverty due to gaining employment or a better job, increasing educational attainment and improving infrastructure. This study using the four panel dataset of Indonesian Fertility Life Survey (IFLS) covering 1993-2007 has three main objectives: first, overview households' mobility into (out of) poverty during 1993-2007; second, analyzing the past dependence of poverty outcome:; third, exploring determinants of why households can move into (out of) poverty?