Based on cross-country panel datasets, we find that (i) an increase in population share in agriculture is associated with poverty reduction once the longer-term poverty change or dynamic is taken into account; (ii) the rural non-agricultural sector also is poverty-reducing in some cases; and...

This paper investigates the effect of the devolution of power to the village level government on the household-level allocation of poverty alleviation programmes, drawing upon National Sample Survey data and the Election Commission’s election data. First, greater inequality in land-holdings...

Based on cross-country datasets, we find that (i) development of the rural agricultural sector is the most poverty reducing; (ii) rural non-agricultural sector also is poverty reducing in some cases, but its magnitude is much smaller than that associated with the rural agricultural sector; and...