Abstract The paper analyses growing inequality in the rising powers, concentrating on the situation in China and India. It describes the various processes that are currently underway to reduce inequality in these economies. These processes include a combination of tightening the labour market,...

Abstract The caste system – a system of elaborately stratified social hierarchy – distinguishes India from most other societies. Among the most distinctive factors of the caste system is the close link between castes and occupations, especially in rural India, with Dalits or Scheduled Castes...

Abstract Aid for Trade (AfT) has gained prominence as an innovative form of donor support in the era of the ‘post’-Washington Consensus. Institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the European Commission, and the UK...

The paper argues that South Africa’s participation in the World Trade Organization since the birth of its democracy in 1994 was informed by its domestic development challenges. It claims that South Africa’s values were derived from its long struggle against apartheid and its transition to a...

The microfinance sector in India’s state of Andhra Pradesh was recently marred by a series of mishaps that occurred due to extensive lending, which resulted in over-indebtedness and ultimately, defaults. Lending institutions resorted to coercive measures for loan recovery that led to suicides...

Abstract Over time, while some countries have experienced trends of poverty and inequality moving in the same direction, others have witnessed the two developmental issues panning out in opposite directions. The latter is observed in Ghana, where in the last two decades poverty has been reducing...

Abstract This paper introduces a new volume on Adaptation, Poverty and Development: The Dynamics of Subjective Well-Being (Clark, 2012), sponsored by the ESRC Global Poverty Research Group (Universities of Manchester and Oxford) and the Brooks World Poverty Institute (University of Manchester)....

Poverty is usually associated with powerlessness, vulnerability and above all failure of aspirations. Poor people might not be able to achieve their capabilities, but this does not mean that they do not have aspirations they wish to fulfil. The concept of aspirations has been explored in the...

Using cross-country regional data over the 1970-2008 period, this study provides further evidence to the growth literature by exploring human capital formation from a gender dimension in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and the Maldives. We use an extended version of the...

In late 1999 a joint meeting of the IMF and World Bank announced the introduction of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) as a means of securing comprehensive development, alongside a framework for the provision of increased financial support (specifically via debt relief). PRSPs were...