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TERRA ECONOMICUS

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  • Real and imaginary strategies for overcoming poverty: Approaches to measurement and evaluation

Real and imaginary strategies for overcoming poverty: Approaches to measurement and evaluation


TERRA ECONOMICUS, Vol. 23, No 4

Citation: Bagirova A.P., Klyuev A.K., Kozitsyna T.S. (2025). Real and imaginary strategies for overcoming poverty: Approaches to measurement and evaluation. Terra Economicus 23(4), 50–67 (in Russian). DOI: 10.18522/2073-6606-2025-23-4-50-67

Acknowledgment: This work is supported by the Russian Science Foundation, grant № 25-28-01542, https://rscf.ru/project/25-28-01542/.

The article presents an approach to analyzing opportunities for reducing poverty in Russian regions. We rely on the theoretical framework of behavioral economics, which implies behavioral factors, as well as the influence of the social environment, emotions, and cognitive abilities in overcoming poverty. The research aims at developing an approach to assessing the reality of intentions to overcome poverty and clustering the poor based on this behavioral indicator. The empirical data were collected through: (1) a survey conducted in June 2023 among working-age population with incomes below the subsistence minimum in the Sverdlovsk Region of Russia (N=1700 respondents), and (2) an expert survey carried out in 2025 involving specialists whose duties include work with the population living below the poverty line (N=25 experts). The design of the study involved calculating indices of intentionality regarding various strategies for exiting material hardship using two types of data, followed by further clustering respondents according to these index values. Three clusters of respondents were identified, differing in combinations of strategies they intend to use to improve their financial situation (specific active or passive strategy types) and a set of behavioral indicators reflecting levels of agency, inclination towards risks, hyperbolic discounting, and trust in institutions. The resulting clusters formed according to the criterion of the reality of intentions to overcome poverty using certain sets of strategies represent a new typology of an important group within Russian society characterized by a behavioral indicator that reflects motivation, perceived accessibility of mechanisms for escaping poverty, and subjective readiness of the impoverished to utilize them.

Keywords: poverty; intentions; reality of intentions; assessment of intention; policies to reduce poverty; social policy
JEL codes: I32, I38, D63


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Publisher: Southern Federal University
ISSN: 2073-6606