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
Evaluating the Effects of Targeted Transfers to 'Mahadalits' in Bihar
The aim of this project is to examine how the transfer of assets to ultra-poor households under different Mahadalit inititatives influences their sense of well-being and their notions of identity. The...
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Hemanshu Kumar Rohini Somanathan
- 01 June, 2013
- IGC Research on India
Incorporating Public Good Availability into the Measure of Poverty
This project makes an attempt to incorporate benefits from unpaid public services into consumption decisions to arrive at more accurate measures of poverty and inequality. The project considered thre...
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Anders Kjelsrud Rohini Somanathan
- 01 May, 2013
- IGC Research on India
Boosting shared prosperity in South Asia
Two-thirds of the poor in India and other South Asian countries live in the lagging regions. This column examines whether there are poverty traps that make it difficult to achieve shared prosperity, a...
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Ejaz Ghani Lakshmi Iyer Saurabh Mishra
- 04 March, 2013
- Articles
Why is poverty declining so slowly in India?
Despite two decades of fast growth of per capita GDP, India has experienced a very slow decline in poverty. The column suggests that this disconnect between GDP growth and poverty decline can largely ...
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Arka Roy Chaudhuri Ashok Kotwal
- 25 February, 2013
- Articles
Creating entrepreneurs: A big new idea in development
Can the world’s poorest people become entrepreneurs? This column outlines results from an evaluation of the Ultra Poor programme in Bangladesh, a scheme that the NGO behind it claims is a staggering...
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Oriana Bandiera Robin Burgess Imran Rasul
- 07 January, 2013
- Articles
Cash Transfers - through the postal system or the banks?
The central government has announced the conversion of 29 poverty schemes to Direct Cash Transfers. Should this be implemented through banks or the postal system? This article assesses the pros and co...
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Ashwini Kulkarni
- 20 December, 2012
- Notes from the Field
Effect of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme on Intra-Household Allocation of Labour
This project focusses on the impact of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGA) on the labour market through studying its impact on intra-household allocation of labour, particularly betwee...
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Abhiroop Mukhopadhyay
- 15 December, 2012
- IGC Research on India
South Asia's bottom half billion
South Asia has more people in extreme poverty than Sub-Saharan Africa. This column asks why such conditions continue in the second fastest growing region in the world. It argues that growth is extreme...
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Ejaz Ghani
- 09 November, 2012
- Articles
Why some poverty-fighting programmes show no net impact
An increasingly popular way to tackle acute poverty is ‘targeting the ultra-poor’. The scheme provides not only money but also training and support and has been hailed a huge success in its origin...
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Jonathan Morduch Shamika Ravi
- 16 October, 2012
- Articles
The resurgence of poverty
Policymakers who aim only at lifting people out of poverty miss an essential fact: even as many people move out of poverty, many others fall back into it. This column argues that tackling poverty requ...
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Anirudh Krishna
- 09 September, 2012
- Articles
Right to Food: Let's get it right
The proposed inter-state resource allocation in the upcoming National Food Security Bill is anti-poor. It will result in unequal treatment of equally poor individuals across rich and poor states. This...
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Abhijit Banerjee
- 25 July, 2012
- Articles
A national shame: Hunger and malnutrition in India
One area where India’s development falls desperately short is nutrition. Child malnutrition rates are higher in India than in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. This column argues that there can be n...
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Anil Deolalikar
- 23 July, 2012
- 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