We show that subjective poverty lines can be derived using simple qualitative assessments of perceived consumption adequacy based on a household survey. We implement the method using survey data for Jamaica and Nepal. Respondents were asked whether their consumptions of food, housing, and clothing were adequate for their family's needs. The implied poverty lines are robust to alternative methods of dealing with other components of expenditure. The aggregate poverty rates accord quite closely with those based on independent “objective” poverty lines. However, there are notable differences in the geographic and demographic poverty profiles.

We analyze labor supply behavior and the choice between formal and informal sector work of the two spouses in families in urban areas of a developing country, using cross-section data from Bolivia drawn in 1989. The model generalizes the neoclassical family labor supply model. Nonmonetary returns of formal sector employment capture the fact that the choice between sectors is not exclusively based on wage differentials. Wage equations, nonmonetary returns equations, and labor supply equations are estimated jointly by smooth simulated maximum likelihood. We find substantial cross-wage elasticities of working hours of both partners, and large substitution elasticities between the two sectors.