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Poverty & Inequality

A short history of MNREGA: 20 years in 10 charts

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What broad lessons have we learned from 115 studies on unconditional cash transfers?

Globally, around 700 million people currently live in extreme poverty, and in recent years, unconditional cash transfers have emerged as a popular tool for poverty alleviation in low- and middle-incom...

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Food deprivation: A thali index reveals what poverty estimates do not

Poverty in India is typically estimated based on a poverty line that identifies the purchasing power needed to satisfy the daily calorific intake deemed necessary. In this post, Balakrishnan and Raj m...

  • Perspectives

Could better jobs for men have improved gender equality?

Evidence indicates that economic growth can improve gender equality. In this post, Sujata Balasubramanian suggests that India’s high-growth period from 1982-83 to 2011-12 failed to do so substantial...

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Price risk and poverty

There is an ongoing policy debate in India on whether grain entitlements under PDS should be converted into cash transfers. This column shows that in the face of high price variability, in-kind trans...

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Two views on fighting world poverty

In the previous article, Lant Pritchett critiqued Chris Blattman’s proposal to compare interventions that provide chickens rather than cash, and the view that the answer is the best investment we c...

  • Perspectives

Inequality and economics: Tony Atkinson's enduring lessons

Sir Tony Atkinson, the doyen of inequality economics, passed away in January. This article, by a longstanding friend and co-author, outlines his contributions to the analysis and measurement of inequ...

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The decline of rural earning inequality in India

While earnings inequality remained virtually unchanged in urban India between 2004-05 and 2011-12, it declined sharply in rural India over this period. This column finds that although the change in t...

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Disintermediating the State: Would a universal basic income reduce poverty more than targeted programmes?

Commenting on the discussion of the universal basic income in India’s Economic Survey 2016-17, Justin Sandefur contends that a modest version of UBI could potentially save money and shift expenditu...

  • Perspectives

Getting kinky with chickens

In the context of Bill Gates’ commitment to chickens as a high-impact poverty intervention, Chris Blattman recently proposed a study to compare interventions that provide chicken rather than cash, ...

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Income inequality in a globalising world

Since the turn of the century, income inequality has risen to be among the most prominent policy issues of our time. This column looks at inequality trends in recent decades. While relative global in...

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The tale and maths of universal basic income

Commenting on the discussion on universal basic income in the recently released Economic Survey, Jean Drèze argues that UBI is an idea whose time will come, but that time is still quite distant as f...

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Inequality in the typical country in the last 25 years

While inequality has received a great deal of attention in the public debate in recent times, the poor quality of data available on this issue is a constraint. Based on a recently-compiled database o...

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Decoding universal basic income for India

In this article, Jean Drèze argues that while universal basic income is a good idea in principle, as far as India today is concerned, it sounds like premature articulation. It could also become a Tr...

  • Perspectives

A universal basic income to step up economic reform

In this article, Nimai Mehta, Academic Director of the Global Economics and Business Program at the American University, highlights the political challenge of introducing the wider set of reforms nee...

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What do we know about the wealthy in India? A pre-liberalisation analysis

Academic attention on the metamorphosis and concentration of wealth has so far excluded poor countries. This column analyses wealth distribution in India, post-independence and pre-liberalisation. It...

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Recent Contributors

Prabhu

Prabhu Pingali

Tata-Cornell Institute

Raghav

Raghav Puri

Cornell University

Jean

Jean Drèze

Ranchi University; Delhi School of Economics

Rahul

Rahul R

Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata

Dean

Dean Karlan

Northwestern University

Tommaso

Tommaso Crosta

Bocconi University

Finley

Finley Ong

Lengo AI

Julius

Julius Ruschenpohler

Global Poverty Research Lab

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Most Popular Poverty & Inequality Posts

Wealth inequality, class, and caste in India: 1961-2012

The level of wealth inequality in India is close to that of some highly unequal countries in the world. This article assesses the long-term evolution of wealth inequality in the country for the period...

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Covid-19: What can be done immediately to help vulnerable population

With over 80% of India’s workforce employed in the informal sector and one-third working as casual labour, Covid-19's spread and subsequent unplanned lockdowns, have created economic havoc in the li...

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A review of the coverage of PDS

The coverage of the Public Distribution System (PDS) has been of wide interest due to the pandemic and lockdown. Based on government data sources, Khera and Somanchi estimate the state-wise coverage o...

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