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Poverty & Inequality

What do poor people think about direct cash transfers?

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Economic mobility in India: Estimation using ‘noisy’ data

There has been a dramatic rise in inequality in India post-liberalisation. This article finds economic mobility to be markedly low, with at least seven out of 10 poor households remaining poor or at-r...

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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...

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What is happening to rural welfare, poverty, and inequality in India?

An analysis of the draft National Statistical Office report that the Government has decided not to put out shows a deterioration in 2017-18 in consumption and poverty levels in rural India. The reason...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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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International Growth Centre

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Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research

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United Nations Population Division

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Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research

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Most Popular Poverty & Inequality Posts

Aadhaar, biometrics, and the PDS in Jharkhand

Aadhaar-based biometric authentication was made mandatory for obtaining rations under the Public Distribution System in Ranchi district in Jharkhand in August 2016. In this article, Nazar Khalid demon...

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Financial literacy: When, what and how

The need for financial literacy and its importance for financial inclusion have been widely recognised. Based on various research studies on financial literacy initiatives, this column outlines finan...

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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...

  • Perspectives