The Poor and the Social Sectors during a Period of Macroeconomic Adjustment: Empirical Evidence for Jamaica
利用牙买加时间序列数据，研究1980年代初尤其是1984-85年强化调整期间，穷人在健康、营养和福利指标上是否显著恶化，发现社会服务支出大幅削减但人力资本指标短期未明显恶化。
Considerable uncertainty remains about the human impact of macroeconomic adjust-ment. Analysis of the impact of adjustment on the poor and on the social sectors is difficult because it involves evaluating a counterfactual situation in which households are affected by prices, incomes, and public services with the possibility of substantial substitutions-all within an economywideframework with complicated concurrent and lagged interactions. In this article, we utilize time-series data for Jamaica to examine whether macroeconomic adjustment, initiated in the early 1980s but intensified in 1984-85, was associated with significant deterioration in various indicators of health, nutritional, and welfare outcomes, particularly among the poor. Although we find evidence of substantial cuts in governmental expenditures on social services, there is little confirmation of significant short-run deterioration in human capital indicators during the adjustment period. There has been much interest recently in analyzing the impact of macro-economic adjustment and stabilization policies on poverty and on the social sectors. Some observers, such as Jolly (1985), Jolly and Cornia (1984), UNICEF