Albania : Social Safety Net Review

[摘要] In 1989, Albania's rigid politicaland socioeconomic structure shattered beyond repair.Turbulence soon invaded every domain of life. As the stateimploded, so did the state-run economy. This review exploresongoing consequences of this difficult transformation thattook place since 1989 and of policy initiatives to mitigateor ameliorate its effects. Albania has been much studied;the review addresses important information gaps. Itestablishes, from the representative 2002 Living StandardsMeasurement Survey (LSMS), which kinds of families receivepublic income transfers and private income flows in whatamounts and from what sources. It estimates the impact thatthese public and private income flows have in mitigatingpre-transfer and post-transfer poverty among households. Itdoes this by type of family and source of income flow, forall Albanian households and for various subsets of them.This review analyzes the relative importance of pensions andsocial assistance in alleviating poverty among ruralhouseholds with aged members. This review also documents andlinks data on expenditures under social programs with dataon program beneficiaries for recent years and it identifiescurrent tradeoffs among the multiple objectives of socialsafety net policies, including those relating to coverage,adequacy, work incentives, equity, and effective governmentspending. Finally, it suggests options for futuredevelopment of social safety net policies, including ways tostrengthen overall policy linkages and programmaticcoordination among social programs.

[发布日期] 2004-12-29 [发布机构] Washington, DC

[学科分类] 社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

[关键词] ACCESS TO SERVICES;AGRICULTURAL INCOMES;AGRICULTURAL LAND;AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION;AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS