This paper analyses the effects of access to Rural Public Works (RPW) and the Public Distribution System (PDS), a public food subsidy programme, on consumption poverty, vulnerability and undernutrition in India drawing, on the large household datasets constructed with National Sample Survey...

This paper examines national-level explanations for poverty decline in Bangladesh in micro-level detail, in order to better understand the nature of the causalities at work and why some households have gained, while others have failed to gain, in the processes of change involved. The analysis ia...

This study estimates ex ante poverty and vulnerability of households in Bangladesh using Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) data in 2005. Our results show that poverty is not same as vulnerability as a substantial share of those currently above the poverty line is highly vulnerable...

Facing rapid demographic, social and economic transformation, China has taken steps to extend and strengthen the urban Minimum Living Standard Scheme (MLSS). The MLSS is a social assistance programme initially focused on the chronically poor, but later extended to the long-term unemployed. The...

This paper examines changes in living conditions in the six villages in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, initially surveyed during 1975-84. We link the original Village Level Survey (VLS) households to a new survey in the villages conducted during 2001-04 and further extensive survey work in...

Samburu pastoralists in northern Kenya experience chronic poverty and often express the belief that formal education may be an alternative route out of poverty. The roles of parental wealth, livestock inheritance and formal education in household wealth (measured in livestock holdings) and...

Participation in increasingly complex global production networks (GPNs) can generate new employment opportunities, new sources of income and better working conditions for vulnerable workers and poor households. Yet, for many, the pattern is one of ‘adverse incorporation', characterised by...

This is a continuation of an earlier paper (2005) by the author which dealt with policy implications based on the work done by CPRC in India. We do not yet have a map of chronic poverty in India, but have an approximate idea of numbers and communities where it has a significant presence. We have...

This article argues that the extreme poor warrant specific analytical and policy focus. It attempts to identify the extreme poor in rural Bangladesh by devising sensitive targeting indicators that are effective in minimising leakage to the non-poor while ensuring broad coverage of the target...

This paper explores whether child labourers come from, not only the poor, but also the poorest households in Bangladesh or not. The paper also tries to explain what determines the participation of children in labour force. A comparison has also been made between macro statistics and micro survey...