How important to India's poor is the sectoral composition of economic growth?
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors assess how much India's poor shared in the country's economic growth, taking into account its urban-rural and output composition, and find that output growth in the primary and tertiary sectors reduced poverty in both urban and rural areas but that secondary sector growth did not reduce poverty in either.
Abstract: Using a new series of consistent, consumption-based poverty measures spanning forty years, the author assess how much India's poor shared in the country's economic growth, taking into account its urban-rural and output composition. Rural consumption growth reduced poverty in both rural and urban areas. Urban growth brought some benefits to the urban poor, but had no impact on rural poverty. And rural-to-urban population shifts had no significant impact on poverty. Decomposing growth by output sectors, we found that output growth in the primary and tertiary sectors reduced poverty in both urban and rural areas but that secondary sector growth did not reduce poverty in either.
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TL;DR: The high mortality and disease burden resulting from these nutrition-related factors make a compelling case for the urgent implementation of interventions to reduce their occurrence or ameliorate their consequences.
5,634 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a method for estimating the effect of household economic status on educational outcomes without direct survey information on income or expenditures is proposed and defended, which uses an index based on household asset ownership indicators.
Abstract: This paper has an empirical and overtly methodological goal. The authors propose and defend a method for estimating the effect of household economic status on educational outcomes without direct survey information on income or expenditures. They construct an index based on indicators of household assets, solving the vexing problem of choosing the appropriate weights by allowing them to be determined by the statistical procedure of principal components. While the data for India cannot be used to compare alternative approaches they use data from Indonesia, Nepal, and Pakistan which have both expenditures and asset variables for the same households. With these data the authors show that not only is there a correspondence between a classification of households based on the asset index and consumption expenditures but also that the evidence is consistent with the asset index being a better proxy for predicting enrollments--apparently less subject to measurement error for this purpose--than consumption expenditures. The relationship between household wealth and educational enrollment of children can be estimated without expenditure data. A method for doing so - which uses an index based on household asset ownership indicators- is proposed and defended in this paper. In India, children from the wealthiest households are over 30 percentage points more likely to be in school than those from the poorest households.
4,661 citations
Book•
24 Nov 2003
TL;DR: The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) as discussed by the authors is a conceptual framework for analysis and decision-making of ecosystems and human well-being that was developed through interactions among the experts involved in the MA as well as stakeholders who will use its findings.
Abstract: This first report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment describes the conceptual framework that is being used in the MA. It is not a formal assessment of the literature, but rather a scientifically informed presentation of the choices made by the assessment team in structuring the analysis and framing the issues. The conceptual framework elaborated in this report describes the approach and assumptions that will underlie the analysis conducted in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. The framework was developed through interactions among the experts involved in the MA as well as stakeholders who will use its findings. It represents one means of examining the linkages between ecosystems and human well-being that is both scientifically credible and relevant to decision-makers. This framework for analysis and decision-making should be of use to a wide array of individuals and institutions in government, the private sector, and civil society that seek to incorporate considerations of ecosystem services in their assessments, plans, and actions.
2,427 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors address the strengths and weaknesses of the main available measures of political regime and extend the dichotomous regime classification first introduced in Alvarez et al. (Stud. Comp. Int. Dev. 31(2):3-36, 1996).
Abstract: We address the strengths and weaknesses of the main available measures of political regime and extend the dichotomous regime classification first introduced in Alvarez et al. (Stud. Comp. Int. Dev. 31(2):3–36, 1996). This extension focuses on how incumbents are removed from office. We argue that differences across regime measures must be taken seriously and that they should be evaluated in terms of whether they (1) serve to address important research questions, (2) can be interpreted meaningfully, and (3) are reproducible. We argue that existing measures of democracy are not interchangeable and that the choice of measure should be guided by its theoretical and empirical underpinnings. We show that the choice of regime measure matters by replicating studies published in leading journals.
1,922 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, an overview of multi-agent system models of land-use/cover change (MAS/LUCC) is presented, which combine a cellular landscape model with agent-based representations of decisionmaking, integrating the two components through specification of interdependencies and feedbacks between agents and their environment.
Abstract: This paper presents an overview of multi-agent system models of land-use/cover change (MAS/LUCC models). This special class of LUCC models combines a cellular landscape model with agent-based representations of decisionmaking, integrating the two components through specification of interdependencies and feedbacks between agents and their environment. The authors review alternative LUCC modeling techniques and discuss the ways in which MAS/LUCC models may overcome some important limitations of existing techniques. We briefly review ongoing MAS/LUCC modeling efforts in four research areas. We discuss the potential strengths of MAS/LUCC models and suggest that these strengths guide researchers in assessing the appropriate choice of model for their particular research question. We find that MAS/LUCC models are particularly well suited for representing complex spatial interactions under heterogeneous conditions and for modeling decentralized, autonomous decision making. We discuss a range of possible roles for MAS/LUCC models, from abstract models designed to derive stylized hypotheses to empirically detailed simulation models appropriate for scenario and policy analysis. We also discuss the challenge of validation and verification for MAS/LUCC models. Finally, we outline important challenges and open research questions in this new field. We conclude that, while significant challenges exist, these models offer a promising new tool for researchers whose goal is to create fine-scale models of LUCC phenomena that focus on human-environment interactions.
1,779 citations
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TL;DR: The process of industrialization engenders increasing income inequality as the labor force shifts from low-income agriculture to the high income sectors as mentioned in this paper, and on more advanced levels of development inequality starts decreasing and industrialized countries are again characterized by low inequality due to the smaller weight of agriculture in production and income generation.
Abstract: The process of industrialization engenders increasing income inequality as the labor force shifts from low-income agriculture to the high income sectors. On more advanced levels of development inequality starts decreasing and industrialized countries are again characterized by low inequality due to the smaller weight of agriculture in production (and income generation).
7,636 citations
5,417 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed a new measure of poverty, which should avoid some of the shortcomings of the measures currently in use, and used an axiomatic approach to derive the measure.
Abstract: The primary aim of this paper is to propose a new measure of poverty, which should avoid some of the shortcomings of the measures currently in use. An axiomatic approach is used to derive the measure. The conception of welfare in the axiom set is ordinal. The information requirement for the new measure is quite limited, permitting practical use.
2,678 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a population of individuals may be grouped according to some vector of characteristics into "clusters", such that each cluster is very similar in terms of the attributes of its members, but different clusters have members with very "dissimilar" attributes.
Abstract: Suppose that a population of individuals may be grouped according to some vector of characteristics into "clusters," such that each cluster is very "similar" in terms of the attributes of its members, but different clusters have members with very "dissimilar" attributes In that case we say that the society is polarized Our purpose is to study polarization, and to provide a theory of its measurement Our contention is that polarization, as conceptualized here, is closely related to the generation of social tensions, to the possibilities of revolution and revolt, and to the existence of social unrest in general We take special care to distinguish our theory from the theory of inequality measurement We derive measures of polarization that are easily applicable to distributions of characteristics such as income and wealth
1,261 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors re-examine three basic issues in measuring poverty: the choice of the poverty line, the index of poverty, and the relation between poverty and inequality.
Abstract: Official statistics in the United States and the United Kingdom show a rise in poverty between the 1970's and the 1980's but scepticism has been expressed with regard to these findings. In particular, the methods employed in the measurement of poverty have been the subject of criticism. This paper re-examines three basic issues in measuring poverty: the choice of the poverty line, the index of poverty, and the relation between poverty and inequality. One general theme running through the paper is that there is a diversity of judgments which enter the measurement of poverty and that it is necessary to recognize these explicitly in the procedures adopted. There is likely to be disagreement about the choice of poverty line, affecting both its level and its structure. In this situation, we may only be able to make comparisons and not to measure differences, and the comparisons may lead only to a partial rather than a complete ordering. The first section of the paper discusses the stochastic dominance conditions which allow such comparisons, illustrating their application by reference to data for the United States. The choice of poverty measure has been the subject of an extensive literature and a variety of measures have been proposed. In the second section of the paper a different approach is suggested, considering a class of measures satisfying certain general properties and seeking conditions under which all members of the class (which includes many of those proposed) give the same ranking. Those sceptical about measures of poverty often assert that poverty and inequality are being confounded. The third section of the paper distinguishes four different viewpoints and relates them to theories of justice and views of social welfare.
1,201 citations