Macroeconomic instability has been increasingly considered as a factor lowering average income growth and, in this way, is a factor slowing down poverty reduction. But it can also result in slower poverty reduction for a given average rate of growth, due to poverty traps, often examined at the...

Does redistribution increase inequality? Is inequality harmfiil for growth? Both questions have recently been addressed in a number of single-tax models. In this paper, I examine the relationship between policy, growth and inequality when income and wealth can be taxed at different rates. In the...

This paper undertakes an assessment of the evolution of inequality in the distribution of consumption expenditure in India over the last quarter-century, from 1983 to 2009-10, employing data available in the quinquennial 'thick' surveys of the National Sample Survey Office. We find that...

This study tests the effects of inequality of opportunity on the economic performance of Indian states. This is first such attempt using Indian data, and the case is relevant because Indian society is divided into different castes and religious groups. Using two rounds of employment survey data...

Although urban China has experienced spectacular income growth over the last two decades, increases in inequality, reduction in social welfare provision, deregulation of grain prices, and increases in income uncertainty in the 1990s have increased urban poverty. Using a large repeated...

Although urban China has experienced a rapid income growth over the last twenty years, nutrition intake for the low income group declined in the 1990s. Does this imply a zero or negative income elasticity for the low income group? This paper examines this issue using large representative sample...

Productivity and socio-economic progress are inter-connected. Economic growth funds policies that promote socio-economic progress, while the latter serves as a growth engine. A society with high mobility is one where individual achievements are influenced less by the individual’s parents and...

This research develops a theory about the role of within-country income inequality leading to overtaking in economic performance among countries. The theory captures two opposing effects of inequality on factor accumulation and suggests that the qualitative change in their combined effect is a...

We examine how structural reforms relate to income inequality. We employ many indicators of structural reforms and use data for market and net income inequality. The dataset includes up to 135 countries since 1960. The results do not suggest that market-oriented structural reforms were...