Aka, B.F (2016) “Feasible Utopia: Cutting Poverty Rate in Half Using Basic Income Grants in Regions and Cities of Cote d´Ivoire”, Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies. RSES Vol. 16-2. July-December of 2016.
Despite the good economic environment and growth performance of African countries, their poverty and inequality rate still high. How to cut poverty rate in half in a short term perspective is investigated here. A universal basic income grant (BIG) has been found as a tool to reach this objective and we simulate the distributional impact of a BIG in Cote d’Ivoire. How the BIG is financed is also investigated. We analyze the effects of a universal basic income grant on households. The simulations are performed using the Côte d’Ivoire’s 1998 household survey data composed of 4,200 households. The results suggest that the unconditional basic income grant appears as a powerful tool to reduce drastically the overall as well as disaggregated level of poverty incidence, depth and severity, and also inequality, and increase welfare.