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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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Bringing global evidence into the MNREGA discourse

MNREGA – the largest public works programme in the world – completed 10 years this month. In this article, Inayat Anaita Sabhikhi, Project Officer, United Nations Development Programme, at the Min...

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From the top to the bottom of MNREGA

MNREGA – the world’s largest public works programme - is intended to be demand-driven and has local implementation at its core. In this note, Megan Sheahan, Research Support Specialist at Cornell...

  • Notes

Against the tide: Deaton's economics

In a tribute to Angus Deaton, recipient of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economics, Reetika Khera, who did her post-doctorate research at Princeton University under Deaton, outlines his India-specific cont...

  • Perspectives

Beyond leaky pipes: Fixing enrolment systems of welfare schemes

Policy initiatives of JAM (Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar, Mobile numbers) trinity and direct benefit transfer focus on unclogging the supply of benefits under welfare schemes by reducing payment leakages....

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Angus Deaton's ideas for India

In a tribute to Angus Deaton, the 2015 Nobel laureate in Economics, Diane Coffey and Dean Spears – former graduate students of Prof. Deaton at Princeton University – review some of his work on th...

  • Perspectives

The coexistence of prosperity and poverty in India

Credit Suisse recently reported that the richest 10% Indians own about 75% of the country’s wealth, highlighting the growing problem of inequality. This column presents trends in inequality in Indi...

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Angus Deaton: The real world economist

In a tribute to Angus Deaton, recipient of this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics, Maitreesh Ghatak, Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, outlines Deaton’s contribution to econ...

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Can microcredit improve food security among the rural poor?

A core objective of microcredit in Bangladesh is to make the rural poor more food secure. To what extent has this been achieved? Analysing household data from Bangladesh, this column finds that parti...

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Are self-help groups helpful?

While a lot of funding goes towards community-driven development projects, rigorous evidence on their socioeconomic impact is limited. This column evaluates the impact of JEEViKA – a rural liveliho...

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Income inequality in India: Trends from the World Top Incomes Database

Given the lack of reliable wage or asset data, tax returns-based World Top Incomes Database is important for measuring income and wealth inequalities. Analysing the India series of the database, this...

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A symposium on Piketty - II: Capitalist dynamics and the plutocrats

In the last part of the series on Piketty, Pranab Bardhan, Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley, discusses the implications for further study that Piketty’s book has for devel...

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A symposium on Piketty: Introduction

Thomas Piketty’s book on ´Capital in the Twenty First Century’ has made waves. The fact that a 700-odd page tome full of numbers and graphs can become an international bestseller is itself notew...

  • Symposia

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International Growth Centre

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Michał Burzyński

Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research

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Christoph Deuster

United Nations Population Division

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Frédéric Docquier

Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research

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Jaime de Melo

University of Geneva

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University of California, San Diego

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College of William and Mary

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Copy Editor, I4I

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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...

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