Working Paper

Growth and Inequality in the Distribution of India’s Consumption Expenditure: 1983 to 2009-10

author(s) Subramanian, S.. - Jayaraj, D.
from UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)
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themes
regions
  • Southern Asia
  • Asia
  • World
citation

Subramanian, S.; Jayaraj, D. Growth and Inequality in the Distribution of India’s Consumption Expenditure: 1983 to 2009-10. UNU-WIDER, Helsinki, Finland (2015) 20 pp. (WIDER Working Paper No. 2015/025)

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Abstract

This paper undertakes an assessment of the evolution of inequality in the distribution of consumption expenditure in India from 1983 to 2009-10. It employes data available in the quinquennial ‘thick’ surveys of the National Sample Survey Office. The authors find that plausible adjustments to the data, along with an emphasis on ‘centrist’ rather than ‘rightist’ or ‘leftist’ inequality measures, lead to a picture of inequality in the distribution of consumption expenditure widening over time, which is at odds with the impression of more or less unchanging inequality conveyed in some of the literature available on the subject in India

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