Using the four high quality household living standards surveys available to date this paper reveals that Vietnam's rural labour force has been markedly diversifying toward nonfarm activities in the doi moi (renovation) reform period. The employment share of the rural nonfarm sector has increased...

It is confirmed based on case studies that the problem of infectious disease of ‘Poverty' among the majority (75 per cent of debt-ridden farmers who are highly productive) has not been tackled with any success due to middlemen's collusive activities which have dwarfed and derailed organic...

The agricultural productivity levels and variations in agricultural performance have been analysed across districts and regions in the state of Uttar Pradesh with the aim of identifying factors that affect land and labour productivity and in turn, rural poverty. The performance of agriculture in...

This paper estimates and maps the multidimensional poverty for rural Pakistan. It uses micro data from household surveys to construct the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) with human development indicators like education, health, standard of living and wealth. Furthermore, it identifies...

Unless there are spatial barriers that limit adjustment, economists argue that policies to alleviate poverty should focus on poor people, not poor places. Akin to urban spatial mismatch hypotheses, we develop a distance-based friction explanation of higher rural poverty. Empirical examination of...

This paper tests for the existence of a Poverty Nutrition Trap (PNT) in the case of the nutrient most likely to have productivity impacts, i.e., calories, for three categories of wages - sowing, harvesting, and other - and for male and female workers separately. We use household level national...

This paper aims to provide a detailed demographic description of poverty in Pakistan with an attempt to highlight those segments of the poor who can be aided to transition out of extreme poverty through appropriate policy measures. Data are collected from the Household Integrated Economic Survey...

China's impressive growth has been accompanied by huge rural-urban divide and social sacrifice of many including rural-urban migrants. Reflecting on the documentary 'Last Train Home' (2009) by Lixin Fan, this paper identifies and examines the life of rural-urban migrants in China in terms of...

The coexistence of urban and rural poverty and migration to cities is studied in a dual economy model where the acquisition of skills is costly and involves migration to urban areas. In this model, both the distribution of innate abilities and the distribution of wealth matter for the migration...