Stephen Younger
Sr. Research Associate
2009
HENutrSci

Web Bio Page

Current Activities

Current Professional Activities
FIELDS OF INTEREST:

Dr. Younger is currently the PI for a project advising the government of Botswana on strategies to diversify its economy and expand employment opportunities.



Current Research Activities
Poverty measurement, especially multidimensional poverty comparisons and non-income measures of well-being and deprivation

Economic policy and poverty in Uganda.




Biography

Biographical Statement
Stephen D. Younger is Associate Director for Cornell Food and Nutrition Policy Program. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University in 1986. His main area of research is development economics and poverty analysis, working primarily in Africa, but also in Latin America. His most recent research falls under the broad themes of multidimensional poverty measurement and the link between macroeconomic policy and the welfare of the poor, and he is a leading analyst of the distributional consequences of public spending and taxation. Much of Dr. Younger’s research has been collaborative, and he counts co-authors in Burkina Faso, Ecuador, Ghana, Madagascar, and Uganda. Most recently, Dr. Younger has advised research by poverty networks in Ecuador, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda. Before coming to Cornell University in 1990, he was an assistant professor of economics at Williams College, and has been a visiting professor at the Facultad Latinoamerica de Ciencias Sociales in Quito, Ecuador, and the Free University of Amsterdam. He has also worked as a technical consultant or advisor on numerous World Bank projects, as well as with the Levy Institute, the Ford Foundation, USAID-Madagascar, UNICEF, UNDP, and the African Development Bank.

Education
1986 Ph.D., Stanford University, Economics and Agricultural Economics
1981 Master of Arts, Stanford University, Economics
1979 Bachelor of Arts, Miami University, Interdisciplinary Studies



Administrative Responsibilities
Associate Director, Cornell Food and Nutrition Policy Program

Keywords
poverty measurement, economic development

Courses, Websites, Pubs

Related Websites

http://www.cfnpp.cornell.edu (CFNPP Home Page)

http://courses.cit.cornell.edu/sdy1 (personal webpage)

 



Selected Publications
"El Impacto de Programas de Transferencias a las Madres de Familia en la Seguridad Alimentaria de los Niños/as: Un Análisis Comparado de los Casos de México y Ecuador" in Ana Fonseca, ed., Transferencias Condicionadas: Erradicación del Hambre y la Desnutrición Crónica, vol 2, FAO, 2009.

"Fiscal Incidence in Africa: Microeconomic Evidence," in Augustin Fosu, Germano Mwabu and Erik Thorbecke, editors, Poverty in Africa: Analytical and Policy Perspectives, University of Nairobi Press, 2009 (with David E. Sahn).

"Living Standards in Africa," in Sudhir Anand, Paul Segal, and Joseph E. Stiglitz, editors, Debates on the Measurement of Poverty, Oxford University Press, Forthcoming, 2009 (with David E. Sahn).

"Risk, Knowledge and Health in Africa: Introduction to the Symposium," 2009, African Development Review 21(1): 1-4 (April) (co-authors: Olu Ajakaiye, Christopher B. Barrett, Ravi Kanbur, and David E. Sahn).

"Measuring Intra-Household Inequality: Explorations Using the Body Mass Index," 2009, Health Economics 18(1): S13-S36 (April) (with David E. Sahn).

"Growth and Poverty Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa: Macroeconomic Adjustment and Beyond," in Paul Collier and Jan Willem Gunning, editors, Poverty and Globalization, Edward Elgar Publishing, April, 2008 (with David E. Sahn).

"Infant Mortality in Uganda: Determinants, Trends, and the Millennium Development Goals, 2008, Journal of African Economies 17(1):34-61 (January) (with Sarah Ssewanyana).

"The Joint Demand for Health Care, Leisure, and Commodities: Implications for Health Care Finance and Access in Vietnam," 2007, Journal of Development Studies 43(8):1475-1500 (November) (with Chad Meyerhoefer and David Sahn).

"Using an Ordinal Approach to Multidimensional Poverty Analysis," 2007, in Nanak Kakwani and Jacques Silber, eds., Quantitative Approaches to Multidimensional Poverty Measurement, pp. 244-261, Palgrave-MacMillan (with Jean-Yves Duclos and David E. Sahn).

"Robust Multidimensional Poverty Comparisons with Discrete Indicators of Well-being," 2007, in Stephen P. Jenkins and JohnMicklewright, eds., Poverty and Inequality Re-examined, Oxford University Press (with Jean-Yves Duclos and David E. Sahn).

"Transfer Payments, Mother’s Income, and Child Health in Ecuador ," 2007, Journal of Development Studies 43(6):1126-1143 (with Mauricio León).

"Robust Multidimensional Spatial Poverty Comparisons in Ghana, Madagascar, and Uganda," 2006. World Bank Economic Review, 20(1):91-113 (with Jean-Yves Duclos and David Sahn).

"Making Multidimensional Poverty Comparisons," 2006. The Economic Journal, 116(514):943-968 (with Jean-Yves Duclos and David Sahn).

"Changes in Inequality and Poverty in Latin America: Looking Beyond Income to Health and Education," 2006, Journal of Applied Economics IX(2):215-234 (November) (with David Sahn).

"Improvements in Children’s Health: Does Inequality Matter?" 2005, Journal of Economic Inequality, 3(2):125-143 (with David E. Sahn).

"Growth and Poverty Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa: Macroeconomic Adjustment and Beyond," 2004, Journal of African Economies. 13, Number 90001, i66-i95 (with David Sahn).

"Review of The Least Developed Countries Report 2002: Escaping the Poverty Trap," 2003, Journal of African Economies 12(4):672-678.

"Estimating the Incidence of Indirect Taxes in Developing Countries," 2003, in Francois Bourguignon and Luiz Pereira da Silva, editors, Techniques and Tools for Evaluating the Poverty Impact of Economic Policies, New York: Oxford University Press.

"Decomposing World Health Inequality," 2003, Journal of Health Economics, 22(2):271-293 (with Menno Pradhan and David Sahn).

"Demand for Health Care in Tanzania: Public-Private Tradeoffs," 2003, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 65(2):241-260 (with David Sahn and Garance Genicot).

"Benefits on the Margin: Evaluating Alternatives to Traditional Benefit Incidence Analysis," 2003, World Bank Economic Review, 17(1):89-106.

"Public Expenditures and Poverty in Peru," 2002, in Christian Morrisson, ed., Education and Health Expenditure, and Development: the Cases of Indonesia and Peru. Paris: OECD.

"Dominance Testing of Transfers in Romania," 2000, Review of Income and Wealth, 46(3):309-327 (with David Sahn and Kenneth Simler).

"Expenditure Incidence in Africa: Microeconomic Evidence," 2000, Fiscal Studies, 21(3):329-347 (with David Sahn).

"Aid, Debt, and Growth in Ghana," 2000, in Ernest Aryeetey, Jane Harrigan and Machiko Nissanke, eds., Economic Reforms in Ghana: The Miracle and the Mirage, Trenton, NJ: African World Press (with Jane Harrigan).

"The Relative Progressivity of Social Services in Ecuador," 1999, Public Finance Review, 27(3):310-352.

"Tax Incidence in Madagascar: an Analysis Using Household Data," 1999, World Bank Economic Review, 13(2):303-331 (with David Sahn, Paul Dorosh, and Steven Haggeblade).

Economic Policy and Poverty: Structural Adjustment in Africa Reconsidered, 1997, New York: Cambridge University Press (with David Sahn and Paul Dorosh).

Incidencia Distributiva del Gasto Público en el Ecuador, 1997, Quito: FLACSO (with Lily Jara and Mauricio Villafuerte)

"Public Finance and Public Employment: An Analysis of Public Sector Retrenchment Programs in Ghana and Guinea," 1996, in Henry Bruton and Catharine Hill, editors, The Evaluation of Public Expenditure in Africa, Washington: The World Bank (with Bradford Mills, David Sahn, and E.E. Walden).

"Exchange Rate, Fiscal, and Agricultural Policies in Africa: Does Adjustment Hurt the Poor?", 1996, World Development 24(4):719-747 (with David Sahn and Paul Dorosh).

"Estimating Tax Incidence in Ghana Using Household Data,", 1996, in David E. Sahn, editor, Economic Reform and the Poor in Africa, New York: Oxford University Press.

"Labor Market Consequences of Retrenchment for Civil Servants in Ghana," 1996, in David E. Sahn, editor, Economic Reform and the Poor in Africa, New York: Oxford University Press.

"A Comparison of Ghanaian Civil Servants’ Earnings Before and After Retrenchment," 1995, Journal of African Economies 4, No. 2, pp. 259-288 (with Harold Alderman and Sudharshan Canagarajah).

"Exchange Rate Management in Ghana," 1994, in James S. Duesenberry et al., Improving Exchange Rate Management in Sub-Saharan Africa, CAER Discussion Paper No. 31, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Institute for International Development (November).

"Exchange Rate Management in Uganda," 1994, in James S. Duesenberry et al., Improving Exchange Rate Management in Sub-Saharan Africa, CAER Discussion Paper No. 31, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Institute for International Development (November) (with Jeffrey D. Lewis).

"Consequences of Permanent Lay-Off from the Civil Service: Results from a Survey of Retrenched Civil Servants in Ghana," 1994, in David Lindauer and Barbara Nunberg, editors, Public Sector Wage and Employment Policies in Sub-Saharan Africa, Washington, DC: The World Bank (with Harold Alderman and Sudharshan Canagarajah).

"Monetary Management in Ghana," 1993, in James S. Duesenberry et al., Improving Monetary Management in Sub-Saharan Africa, CAER Discussion Paper No. 11, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Institute for International Development (November).

"The Economic Impact of a Foreign Debt Bail-out for Private Firms in Ecuador," 1992, Journal of Development Studies 29, no. 3 (April).

"Aid and the Dutch Disease: Macroeconomic Management When Everybody Loves You," 1992, World Development 20, no. 11 (November).

"Testing the Link Between Devaluation and Inflation: Time Series Evidence from Ghana," 1992, Journal of African Economies 1, no. 3 (November).

"Competitive Allocation of Global Credit Ceilings," 1991, Cornell Food and Nutrition Policy Program, Working Paper No. 12, (September).

"La Fuga de Capitales en el Ecuador: 1974-1986," 1988, Questiones Económicas, (Winter).

"Ghana's Economic Recovery Program: A Case Study of Stabilization and Structural Adjustment in Sub-Saharan Africa," 1989, in McFarland, Earl L., et al., Successful Development Activity in Africa: Case Studies of Projects, Programs, and Policies, Economic Development Institute, World Bank.

"The Onchocerciasis Control Program," 1989, in McFarland, Earl L., et al., Successful Development Activity in Africa: Case Studies of Projects, Programs, and Policies, Economic Development Institute, World Bank. (with Jean- Baptiste Zongo).

"The Projet Agro-Forestier: A Case Study of Agricultural Research and Extension in Burkina Faso," 1989, in McFarland, Earl L., et al., Successful Development Activity in Africa: Case Studies of Projects, Programs, and Policies, Economic Development Institute, World Bank. (with Edouard Bonkoungou).

"Inflation-Indexed Exchange Rates and Macroeconomic Stability in Less-Developed Countries," 1986, Stanford University, Ph.D. dissertation.