•  
Main Banner Image
Poverty & Inequality

Why are canteens important when 800 million people get free grains?

  • Notes from the Field

The problem of India’s stagnant real wages

New data from the Labour Bureau and the National Sample Survey Office point to a virtual stagnation of real wages in India over the past decade. In this post, Das and Drèze argue that this trend poin...

  • Perspectives

Rethinking social safety nets in a changing society

This paper was coauthored by Debasis Barik, Pallavi Choudhuri, Bijay Chouhan, Om Prakash Sharma, Dinesh Kumar Tiwari (NCAER) and Sharan Sharma (University of Maryland College Park and NCAER). Histori...

  • Articles

Determining how many Indians are poor today

Poverty debates in India have seen a revival since the release of a fact sheet from the 2022-23 household consumption expenditure survey. In this post, Ghatak and Kumar note that the general consensus...

  • Perspectives
214 posts
Refine list by:
--Please Select--
--Please Select--

Estimating intergenerational income mobility in rural India

For developing countries, it is difficult to find income mobility studies that rely on datasets linking parents with their children. Using a panel dataset spanning 1994-2012, this column presents imp...

  • Articles

Understanding livelihood resilience in Bihar

This column develops a livelihood resilience index including three key components – bio-physical, economic, and social resources – and estimates the index for districts in the state of Bihar.

  • Articles

A proposal for universal basic services

In the context of the ongoing debate on the idea of a universal basic income for India, Prof. Himanshu of Jawaharlal Nehru University argues that we first need to ensure that all citizens have access...

  • Perspectives

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...

  • Articles

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...

  • Articles

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...

  • Articles

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, ...

  • Perspectives

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...

  • Articles

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...

  • Perspectives

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...

  • Articles

Recent Contributors

Reetika

Reetika Khera

Indian Institute of Technology Delhi

Ali

Ali Aouad

MIT Sloan School of Management

Kamalini

Kamalini Ramdas

London Business School

Alp

Alp Sungu

Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Jean

Jean Drèze

Ranchi University; Delhi School of Economics

Arindam

Arindam Das

Foundation for Agrarian Studies, Bangalore

Sonalde

Sonalde Desai

University of Maryland

Maitreesh

Maitreesh Ghatak

London School of Economics

View all Contributors

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...

  • Articles

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...

  • Perspectives

EWS reservation in higher education: Affirmative action or vote bank politics?

The Constitution (103rd Amendment) Act, 2019, provides for 10% reservation for the economically weaker sections (EWS) in higher educational institutions within the general category. In this post, Devi...

  • Perspectives