Poverty dynamics in rural Mexico: What does the future hold?

Abstract

We use panel data from the 2002-2007 period to analyze poverty dynamics in rural Mexico. The poverty measures show almost three fifths of the surveyed households experienced poverty at least once, while one fifth were cataloged as chronically poor. Additionally, asset accumulation dynamics show that there is low asset mobility and that the level of welfare Mexican rural households are expected to reach in the long run would be above poverty, but still quite low (per capita income equal to 6.35 times the Mexican food poverty line). JEL Classification: I32, O12.

Keywords

• Mexico
• Household Welfare Dynamics
• Poverty Traps.