Abstract: There has been much debate about how much India’s poor have shared in the economic grow... more Abstract: There has been much debate about how much India’s poor have shared in the economic growth unleashed by economic reforms in the 1990s. The paper argues that India has probably maintained its 1980s rate of poverty reduction in the 1990s. However, there is considerable diversity in performance across states. This holds some important clues for understanding why economic growth has not done more for India’s poor. India’s economic growth in the 1990s has not been occurring in the states where it would have the most impact on poverty nationally. If not for the sectoral and geographic imbalance of growth, the national rate of growth would have generated a rate of poverty reduction that was double India’s historical trend rate. States with relatively low levels of initial rural development and human capital development were not well-suited to reduce poverty in response to economic growth. The paper’s results are consistent with the view that achieving higher aggregate economic gro...
Using household survey data for 1998, this paper assesses the distributional impact of the recent... more Using household survey data for 1998, this paper assesses the distributional impact of the recent economic crisis in the Philippines. The results suggest that impact of the crisis was modest, leading to a 5 % reduction in average living standards and a 9 % increase in the incidence of poverty, with higher increases indicated for the depth and severity of poverty. The largest share of the overall impact on poverty is attributable to the El-Niño shock as opposed to shocks mediated through the labor market. Both household and community characteristics mattered to the differential impact of the crisis. There is some evidence of consumption smoothing by the crisis-affected households, though the poor amongst them were more constrained in their ability to protect their consumption. 1 We are grateful to the National Statistics Office, Manila, for their help with the provision of survey data. For useful comments and other forms of help we would like to thank Harold Alderman, Arsenio Balisac...
Abstract: There has been much debate about how much India’s poor have shared in the economic grow... more Abstract: There has been much debate about how much India’s poor have shared in the economic growth unleashed by economic reforms in the 1990s. The paper argues that India has probably maintained its 1980s rate of poverty reduction in the 1990s. However, there is considerable diversity in performance across states. This holds some important clues for understanding why economic growth has not done more for India’s poor. India’s economic growth in the 1990s has not been occurring in the states where it would have the most impact on poverty nationally. If not for the sectoral and geographic imbalance of growth, the national rate of growth would have generated a rate of poverty reduction that was double India’s historical trend rate. States with relatively low levels of initial rural development and human capital development were not well-suited to reduce poverty in response to economic growth. The paper’s results are consistent with the view that achieving higher aggregate economic gro...
Using household survey data for 1998, this paper assesses the distributional impact of the recent... more Using household survey data for 1998, this paper assesses the distributional impact of the recent economic crisis in the Philippines. The results suggest that impact of the crisis was modest, leading to a 5 % reduction in average living standards and a 9 % increase in the incidence of poverty, with higher increases indicated for the depth and severity of poverty. The largest share of the overall impact on poverty is attributable to the El-Niño shock as opposed to shocks mediated through the labor market. Both household and community characteristics mattered to the differential impact of the crisis. There is some evidence of consumption smoothing by the crisis-affected households, though the poor amongst them were more constrained in their ability to protect their consumption. 1 We are grateful to the National Statistics Office, Manila, for their help with the provision of survey data. For useful comments and other forms of help we would like to thank Harold Alderman, Arsenio Balisac...
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