Evidence on the association between traditional poverty measures and health is widely available in the literature. However, the traditional ex-post poverty measures neglect many aspects of household welfare by overlooking the risk that a household faces in view of fewer resources available to...

This paper explores the important but relatively neglected issue of real income transfers, net of the opportunity cost of time, under India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. We use representative household level primary data for three states, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and...

We have constructed a composite indicator of anthropometric failure (CIAF) that refines the Waterlow-3 tier classification, using a recent nation-wide household survey. The CIAF and its disaggregation into subcategories of undernourished 5 years old children reveal a grimmer story of child...

Governments struggle with the reality that the beneficiaries of anti-poverty programs are powerless to influence policies and stem the possibility of capture of benefits by the nonpoor. Networks – social and political – are supposed to increase the ability of the lesspowerful to access their...

Our study examines changes in diets over the period 1993-2004. Diets have shifted away from cereals towards higher consumption of fruits, vegetables, oils and livestock products. Using household data, reduced form demand relations are estimated for nine food commodities. Significant own and...

Using a unique panel data for rural India for the periods 1999 and 2006 this paper models vulnerability to poverty. We quantify household vulnerability in rural India in 1999 and 2006, investigate the determinants of ex post poverty as well as ex ante vulnerability, assess the role of ex ante...

Using Vulnerability as Expected Utility (VEU) analysis that permits the decomposition of household vulnerability into its components on a unique data set this paper demonstrates that in rural India household vulnerability is most explained by poverty and idiosyncratic components. So far as risk...

Our study examines changes in diets over the period 1993-2009. Diets have shifted away from cereals towards higher consumption of fruits, vegetables, oils and livestock products. Using household data, a food diversity index (FDI) is constructed, based on five food commodities. Significant price...

In response to the Deaton and Dreze (2009) explanation of a downward shift in the calorie Engel curve in terms of lower requirements due to health improvements and lower activity levels in India, we develop an alternative explanation embedded in a standard demand theory framework, with food...

Building on a recent important contribution by Deaton and Dreze (2009), our analysis sheds new light on why the calorie Engel curve shifted down-especially in rural India- over the period 1993–2004. The puzzle for the longer period analysed by Deaton and Dreze (2009) is that despite higher...