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161. Land Reform and Landholdings in Brazil

Author:
Juliano Assunção
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Land and wealth are closely related in rural Brazil, a country characterized by high levels of inequality in terms of income or landholdings. After presenting a historical retrospective of land concentration and land reform in Brazil, this study evaluates the impact of the land reform programme undertaken in the 1990s on land ownership and land distribution. It is shown that the programme increased landownership among poor rural families and those with less educated household heads, reducing the fraction of the other families with landholding. Also, the land reform programme increased land inequality among landowners.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Brazil and South America

162. Gender Earnings Differentials and Regional Economic Development in Urban China, 1988-97

Author:
Ying Chu Ng
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Gender earnings differentials in urban China by region and their changes during the first decade of economic reform are examined. It is found that the female–male earnings ratio increased during the early stage of reform. The male earnings premium, overall, showed an increasing trend in the later stage of reform. Decomposition of the gender earnings differential reveals that a relatively lower percentage of the differential could be explained by gender differences in productive characteristics in the fast growing regions and in regions with a rapid pace of reform. The cross-sectional results highlight the possible existence of gender discrimination, particularly in the later stages of economic reform and development. Both market competition and the effects of wage decentralization play a role in shaping the gender earnings differentials. Gender earnings differentials varied by region and over time, generally in tandem with the pace of economic reform and development. The decomposition of the overtime changes in the earnings gap indicated that improvement in females' productive characteristics during the reform period constantly enhanced the earnings of females relative to those of males. The overtime changes in the returns to females' characteristics, however, work to counter any narrowing of the gender earnings gap.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Gender Issues
Political Geography:
China and Asia

163. The Urban-Rural Income Gap and Inequality in China

Author:
Shi Li, Ximing Yue, Terry Sicular, and Björn Gustafsson
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Using new household survey data for 1995 and 2002, we investigate the size of China's urban-rural income gap, the gap's contribution to overall inequality in China, and the factors underlying the gap. Our analysis improves on past estimates by using a fuller measure of income, adjusting for spatial price differences and including migrants. Our methods include inequality decomposition by population subgroup and the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition. Several key findings emerge. First, the adjustments substantially reduce China's urban-rural income gap and its contribution to inequality. Nevertheless, the gap remains large and has increased somewhat over time. Second, after controlling for household characteristics, location of residence remains the most important factor underlying the urban-rural income gap. The only household characteristic that contributes substantially to the gap is education. Differences in the endowments of, and returns to, other household characteristics such as family size and composition, landholdings, and communist party membership are relatively unimportant.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
China and Asia

164. Enforcing the Right to Food in India: Bottlenecks in Delivering the Expected Outcome

Author:
George Cheriyan
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Over the past decade, a series of events in India have brought the question of food security into sharp focus. Vast famine-affected areas versus surplus production and stocks of grains, the impact of globalization and World Trade Organization laws on agriculture and farmers, the media's spotlight on starvation deaths and, finally, the Supreme Court of India's strong reaction to the plight of the hungry—all make a case for recognizing the right to food.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
India and Asia

165. Women and Food Security in South Asia: Current Issues and Emerging Concerns

Author:
Nira Ramachandran
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The food security scenario in South Asia has witnessed rapid progress over the last few decades, yet nutrition outcomes, especially those related to women and children, have failed to keep pace. This paper contends that the role of women in providing food and nutrition security at the household and individual level needs to be examined, if the paradox of persisting malnutrition amid macro level food sufficiency is to be resolved. Food security, in its broader connotation, results from the availability of adequate food, effective consumption, and desirable nutrition outcomes. As such, it is intricately linked with a woman's multiple roles expressed in her productive, reproductive, and caring functions. However, even focussed efforts aimed at resolving the problems faced by women in performing one or other of their roles, may fail to produce expected results, if the issues underlying each function and their inter-linkages are not fully understood. The paper thus attempts to review various aspects of the relationship between women and food security in South Asia, highlight the issues that require urgent focus and indicate emerging concerns in the region.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
South Asia

166. International Trade, Food Security and the Response to the WTO in South Asian Countries

Author:
Ramesh Chand
Publication Date:
10-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Agriculture contributes substantially to output and employment in South Asian countries. Therefore, any change, like trade liberalization, that impacts on the agriculture sector has widespread ramifications in terms of employment, nutrition, livelihood and food security. Implementation of various provisions of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture causes serious concern with regard to the performance of the agriculture sector and food security, and these countries have become quite sensitive to consequences of future WTO agreements. The cautious approach towards the WTO is mainly caused by the increased dependence on food imports and deterioration in self-reliance in agriculture in the post-WTO period because of a much higher growth in food import as compared to exports. Decline in international prices and trade distortions are the underlying causes for an adverse impact on agriculture during the post-WTO period. South Asian countries should address these two issues in future negotiations.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
South Asia

167. Realizing the Right to Food in South Asia

Author:
Manju Balana and Pradeep Bhargava
Publication Date:
10-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Basic human rights recognize the intrinsic value of freedom, only not for the value of freedom itself, but also for its instrumental role enabling an individual to choose a bundle of commodities and wellbeing. The role of food, a basic necessity of life, in fostering freedom is important, to say the least. South Asian countries have witnessed a substantial increase in food production but nutritional emergency prevails in large regions indicating both failure in food distribution and the lack of capacity to acquire food. Acquiring food is intrinsically related to the availability of work, and people's capacity to undertake work.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
South Asia

168. The Evolution of Personal Wealth in the Former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe

Author:
Andrei Rachinsky and Sergei Guriev
Publication Date:
10-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This study discusses the evolution of personal wealth in transition economies. While data availability is still a problem, the available indirect evidence suggests privatization has resulted in an increase in personal wealth but also in personal wealth inequality, especially in the countries that lagged behind in building effective institutions. Another source of wealth inequality is the high income inequality due to wage decompression coupled with the low saving rates among the poor. We pay a special attention to one of the most noticeable implications of this rise in personal wealth and wealth inequality— the emergence of so called 'oligarchs'. Using the comprehensive dataset of Muscovites' incomes we show that surveys that do not take into account the first- and second-tier rich (billionaires and millionaires) may drastically underestimate inequality.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Eastern Europe and Soviet Union

169. The Distribution of Household Wealth in India

Author:
D. Jayaraj and S. Subramanian
Publication Date:
10-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper reviews the principal source of India's wealth distribution statistics, which is constituted by the five decennial Reserve Bank of India National Sample Survey Organization Surveys on Debt and Investment of 1961-62, 1971-72, 1981-82, 1991-92, and 2002-03. The data available are described, critically appraised, and analyzed to present some salient findings in terms of the levels of debt, the levels of asset-holdings across the states of the Indian Union and over time, wealth composition, and aspects of vertical and horizontal inequality in the distribution of wealth. The centrality of land and real estate in the wealth status of India is underlined, and some broad aspects of redistributive anti-poverty policy are spelt out.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
India and Asia

170. Gender and the Distribution of Wealth in Developing Countries

Author:
Cheryl R. Doss and Carmen Diana Deere
Publication Date:
10-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Only recently has it been recognized that women may not share in the wealth of men, even within the same household or family. Moreover, there is growing evidence that the gender distribution of wealth matters. This paper first reviews the available evidence for developing countries on the gender asset gap and finds that it is significant. It then considers the constraints on women's asset ownership with particular attention to the role of legal marital and inheritance regimes. The paper then turns to a more detailed examination of women's land ownership in Latin America and Africa. The final section considers the impact of women's land ownership on household income and welfare.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, International Political Economy, and Third World
Political Geography:
Africa and Latin America