This ground-breaking study on the measurement of poverty shows how policy in this field has taken a wrong turn with disastrous results. In recent years, poverty has generally been understood in 'relative' terms. That is, people are regarded as poor if they earn less than some benchmark relative to average earnings. One perverse result of such relative poverty measures amongst many is that poverty often declines in a serious recession when the better paid lose their jobs. The policy response of income transfers, which are used to address the perceived problem of relative poverty, has often led to serious problems that actually reduce long-term opportunities for poorer people. The author proposes an entirely new way of measuring poverty. If this measure were applied, public policy would orientate itself towards creating the conditions that allowed the poor to become better off. Such a strategy would focus not only on ensuring economic growth and more labour market participation, but also on supply-side reforms that would reduce the cost of living for the poor. This monograph is essential reading for all involved in the poverty debate. Its approach to the measurement of poverty and its policy conclusion are original and soundly based on evidence.

A New Understanding of Poverty: Poverty Measurement and Policy Implications (IEA Research Monographs)

Business & Money

Niemietz, Kristian

Economics

Institute Of Economic Affairs

The political debate about poverty is entirely dominated by groups calling for more income transfers to the poor, but author Kristian Niemietz lays out another approach to dealing with the problem of poverty-one that focuses on addressing the problems caused by government interventions that raise the cost of living. These interventions are enormous in their effect on the poor. As Niemietz points out, the poverty lobbies are more or less silent on these crucial matters, but this has not always been the case. In the past, free-trade movements, for example, had been seen as pro-poor movements. Alongside radical market reforms, the Niemietz proposes wide-ranging welfare reform to encourage work and remove the penalties on family formation. This would include a form of negative income tax system and the localization of welfare decisions.

Redefining the Poverty Debate: Why a War on Markets Is No Substitute for a War on Poverty (IEA Research Monographs)

Socialism is strangely impervious to refutation by real-world experience. Over the past hundred years, there have been more than two dozen attempts to build a socialist society, from the Soviet Union to Maoist China to Venezuela. All of them have ended in varying degrees of failure. But, according to socialism's adherents, that is only because none of these experiments were "real socialism." This book documents the history of this, by now, standard response. It shows how the claim of fake socialism is only ever made after the event. As long as a socialist project is in its prime, almost nobody claims that it is not real socialism. On the contrary, virtually every socialist project in history has gone through a honeymoon period, during which it was enthusiastically praised by prominent Western intellectuals. It was only when their failures became too obvious to deny that they got retroactively reclassified as "not real socialism."

Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies

Why did the West become rich? Was it the product of institutions, culture, and economic policies? Or were foreign expansion, imperialist exploitation and the slave trade the keys to prosperity? In this book, Kristian Niemietz takes the reader beyond the 'Culture War' debates around the legacy of the British Empire, and looks at the economics of imperialism. By examining the empirical work of modern historians of colonialism, as well as the views of contemporary figures ranging from Adam Smith to Karl Marx, Niemietz explores a debate which has raged for three centuries and is only growing more contentious. Drawing on data from various European colonial empires, Niemietz casts doubt on the claim - popular among both 19th-century imperialists and modern-day progressives - that empire was a crucial factor in the West's rise to prosperity. Instead, he shows that - its immorality aside - Western colonialism was simply bad economics. Far from being a story of plunder leading to sustained growth, the story of empire is an all too familiar tale of vested interests using the state to secure private benefits while leaving the taxpayer to foot the bill.

Imperial Measurement: A Cost–Benefit Analysis of Western Colonialism

London Publishing Partnership

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Books by Niemietz, Kristian

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Niemietz, Kristian. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A New Understanding of Poverty: Poverty Measurement and Policy Implications (IEA Research Monographs)

Redefining the Poverty Debate: Why a War on Markets Is No Substitute for a War on Poverty (IEA Research Monographs)

Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies

Imperial Measurement: A Cost–Benefit Analysis of Western Colonialism