19 February, 2025India’s poverty rate does not measure what you think it does
Like all national poverty rates, India’s poverty rate is interpreted as the share of the population that is poor in a given year. In this post, Merfeld and Morduch argue that, in practice, India’s...
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Joshua Merfeld Jonathan Morduch 
16 December, 2024
- Articles
In-kind transfers: Deadweight losses or gains?
Do in-kind transfers for social assistance lead to ‘deadweight losses’ by restricting consumer choice? This article presents findings from an experiment in Maharashtra, which involved offering low...
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Klaus Abbink Gaurav Datt Lata Gangadharan Digvijay S. Negi Bharat Ramaswami
- 16 October, 2024
- Articles
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...
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Sonalde Desai
- 15 July, 2024
- Articles
Workfare as an effective way to fight poverty: The case of India's MNREGA
The fundamental appeal of a workfare programme, vis-à-vis a welfare programme, is that it helps in targeting the beneficiaries. This column assesses the welfare impact of MNREGA on poor rural househ...
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Shamika Ravi
- 11 December, 2014
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MNREGA's swan song: Not everyone's idea of achche din
Over the last few months, the central government announced a set of measures to restrict MNREGA. The rationale essentially revolves around corruption in the scheme and lack of economic viability. In ...
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Amitava Gupta
- 14 November, 2014
- Perspectives
(Mis)Leading attack on MNREGA
Bhagwati and Panagariya have argued for phasing out MNREGA in favour of cash transfers. In this article, Abreu et al. contend that the argument is based on inflating the costs of the programme and de...
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Dilip Abreu Pranab Bardhan Maitreesh Ghatak Ashok Kotwal Dilip Mookherjee Debraj Ray
- 12 November, 2014
- Perspectives
Switching to sanitation in South Asia: A study of health technology adoption (a seed study)
Open defecation in rural India presents a puzzle: India has far higher open defecation rates than other developing regions where people are poorer, literacy rates are lower, and water is more scarce.
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Diane Coffey
- 31 October, 2014
- IGC Research on India
A critical assessment of the Rangarajan Panel Report on poverty measurement
An expert committee headed by C Rangarajan was appointed by the government to rethink poverty measurement in India. This column provides a critical assessment of the recently released report of the C...
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Ranjan Ray Kompal Sinha
- 30 October, 2014
- Articles
Is the proposed restructuring of MNREGA desirable?
The rural development ministry plans to restrict MNREGA to the 200 most backward districts, and reduce the wage component of the total expenditure of the programme. In this article, Ashwini Kulkarni ...
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Ashwini Kulkarni
- 20 October, 2014
- Perspectives
The 'urban sprawl' and declining rural-urban inequality
India has experienced rapid urbanisation in the past three decades. Has urbanisation impacted the economic wellbeing of rural and urban workers? This column finds that the rural-urban wage gap has sh...
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Viktoria Hnatkovska Amartya Lahiri
- 29 September, 2014
- Articles
Please weight
The latest wealth index by New World Wealth that looks at multimillionaires has ranked India eighth in the global rich list. This article contends that looking at absolute numbers may be misleading. ...
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Maitreesh Ghatak Debraj Ray
- 05 September, 2014
- Perspectives
Squaring the poverty circle
An expert group headed by C Rangarajan has recommended a poverty measurement methodology for India. In this article, Deaton and Drèze argue that the method proposed by the expert group to set povert...
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Angus Deaton Jean Drèze
- 30 July, 2014
- Perspectives
MNREGA: Populist leaky bucket or successful anti-poverty programme?
MNREGA – the world’s largest workfare programme - formed the backbone of the UPA government’s anti-poverty programme, and may well represent its most important legacy in the long run. This colu...
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Dilip Mookherjee
- 28 May, 2014
- Articles
The plight of 'complimentary' migrants: Children at brick kilns
Migration for work is meant to benefit families of migrant workers. But what if the families migrate along with the worker? Based on visits to brick kilns in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Prade...
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Parul Agarwal
- 09 May, 2014
- Notes from the Field
Going beyond the Gujarat versus rest of India debate on growth rates
This column attempts to widen the ongoing growth rates-based debate on ‘Gujarat vs. rest of India’ by ranking Indian states on prices, cost of living, household expenditures and inequality, which...
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Ranjan Ray
- 07 May, 2014
- Articles
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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...
- Nitin Kumar Bharti
- 28 June, 2019
- 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...
- Reetika Khera
- 25 March, 2020
- 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...
- Devika Malhotra Sharma
- 11 September, 2019
- Perspectives