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...

This paper discusses the conceptual and operational problems associated with the social audit of a government scheme. It argues that social audits have not performed well in the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme because of three problems. First, conceptually, it has been unable...

The objective of this analysis is mainly to construct an intuitive measure of the performance of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in India -a nation-wide poverty alleviation programme which was introduced in 2005. The focus is on excess demand at the district level. Some...

Overall participation in the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS) in Maharashtra (an Indian state) fell sharply over the period 1980-97. Some of this reduction was due to expansion of irrigation facilities leading to expansion of farm employment. Alongside, expansion of non-farm employment led to a...

This paper uses a simple empirical approach to estimate vulnerability to food inadequacy using a cross-section data from the 2001 Timor-Leste Living Standard Measurement Survey. This measurement is based on the assumption that households are exposed to the same kind of shock. We find that the...

Using National Sample Survey data for rural India we examine the incidence of capture in two workfare programs in rural India: the Rural Public Works and the Food for Work Programs for 1993-1994 and 2004-2005 respectively. We discover a high degree of program capture among the general...

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 re-examines the sources of inequality in Vietnam, a transitional economy with large reductions in poverty from recent and dramatic economic growth, but vastly unequal gains across ethnic groups. Using an instrumental variable approach to provide consistent estimators of explanatory...