This paper explains a method that can be used to adjust the NSS 55th Round poverty estimates so as to make them comparable with earlier official estimates. After presenting the adjusted head-count ratios for all-India and each of the large states, for both urban and rural sectors, the author...

Taller populations are typically richer populations, and taller individuals live longer and earn more In consequence, adult height has recently become a focus in understanding the relationship between health and wealth. We investigate the childhood determinants of population adult height,...

I argue that progress in understanding economic development (as in other branches of economics) must come from the investigation of mechanisms; the associated empirical analysis can usefully employ a wide range of experimental and non-experimental methods. I discuss three different areas of...

Purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates are extensively used by researchers and by policymakers. This paper proposes and implements a new methodology for calculating PPPs using information on unit values from household surveys. Although unit values are not identical to prices, they have...

Elderly Americans who live with people under age 18 have lower life evaluations than those who do not. They also experience worse emotional outcomes, including less happiness and enjoyment, and more stress, worry, and anger. In part, these negative outcomes come from selection into living with a...

The World Bank prepares and publishes estimates of the number of poor people in the world. While everyone knows that these numbers should be taken with a pinch of salt, the numbers are arguably important. In an institution where the reduction of poverty is the paramount objective, some overall...

The extent to which growth reduces global poverty has been disputed for 30 years. Although there is better data than ever before, controversies are not resolved. A major problem is that consumption measured from household surveys, which is used to measure poverty, grows less rapidly than...

Standard methods of poverty measurement assume that an individual is poor if he or she lives in a family whose income or consumption lies below an appropriate poverty line. Such methods can provide only limited insight into male and female poverty separately. Nevertheless, there are reasons why...

PPP-based national accounts have become an important part of the database for macroeconomists, development economists, and economic historians. Frequently used global data come from the Penn World Table (PWT) and the World Bank’s World Development Indicators; a substantial fraction of the...

As the name suggests, economic development was originally thought of as economic growth, but in recent years it has increasingly come to be thought of as poverty reduction. The World Bank proclaims that Our dream is a world free of poverty and increasingly works to direct all of its activities...