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11. Why Are Indian Children So Short?

Author:
Seema Jayachandran and Rohini Pande
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
India's child stunting rate is among the highest in the world, exceeding that of many poorer African countries. In this paper, we analyze data for over 174,000 Indian and Sub-Saharan African children to show that Indian firstborns are taller than African firstborns; the Indian height disadvantage emerges with the second child and then increases with birth order. This pattern persists when we compare height between siblings, and also holds for health inputs such as vaccinations. Three patterns in the data indicate that India's culture of eldest son preference plays a key role in explaining the steeper birth order gradient among Indian children and, consequently, the overall height deficit. First, the Indian firstborn height advantage only exists for sons. Second, an Indian son with an older sibling is taller than his African counterpart if and only if he is the eldest son. Third, the India-Africa height deficit is largest for daughters with no older brothers, which reflects that fact that their families are those most likely to exceed their desired fertility in order to have a son.
Topic:
Health, Poverty, Children, and International Development
Political Geography:
Africa, South Asia, and India

12. British Foreign Policy in an Unequal World

Author:
Edmund Cairns
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The UK needs a safe world in which to trade and invest, and to be free from the security threats caused by conflicts or fragile states. Yet spiralling inequality and climate change, among many other factors, threaten to create a more dangerous, unequal world. As the continuing tragedy in Syria shows, the world's old and new powers have not yet found a way to unite to end conflicts. The age of interventions, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, is over. But a new rule-based world in which China, India, and others unite with Western powers to protect civilians and end conflicts has not yet come into being. Whoever wins the 2015 UK general election, the greatest test for UK foreign policy will be how much it can do to help build that world.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Climate Change, Poverty, Insurgency, and Fragile/Failed State
Political Geography:
Britain, China, Iraq, United Kingdom, Europe, India, and Syria

13. Working for the Many: Public services fight inequality

Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Economic inequality – the skewed distribution of income and wealth – is soaring. Oxfam's own research has found that the 85 richest individuals in the world have as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population. Economic inequality is also putting lives on the line – more than 1.5 million lives are lost each year due to high income inequality in rich countries alone. A recent study of 93 countries estimated that reducing the income share of the richest 20 per cent by just one percentage point could save the lives of 90,000 infants each year. Estimates also show that failing to tackle inequality will add hundreds of billions of dollars to the price tag of ending poverty, putting the achievement of any new post-2015 poverty goals in jeopardy.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Education, Poverty, Monetary Policy, and Reform
Political Geography:
India

14. The BRICS Development Bank: Why the world's newest global bank must adopt a pro-poor agenda

Author:
Lysa John
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
In July 2014, a new multilateral and Southern-led development bank is expected to be launched by the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – better known as the BRICS. The BRICS Development Bank will provide a fresh source of finance for developing and emerging economies to meet their development needs. Little has been made public regarding the proposed Bank's core mandate or activities but while governments negotiate the technicalities of the Bank, it is critical that they also provide a solid vision of the principles, priorities and objectives on which the Bank's activities and operations will be premised. This policy brief recommends that these include commitments to: ending extreme poverty and inequality, with a special focus on gender equity and women's rights; aligning with environmental and social safeguards and establishing mechanisms for information sharing, accountability and redress; leadership on the sustainable development agenda; the creation of mechanisms for public consultation and debate; and the adoption a truly democratic governance structure.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Gender Issues, International Cooperation, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Africa, Russia, China, Europe, India, Asia, South Africa, Brazil, and South America

15. Welfare Analysis of Changing Food Prices: A Nonparametric Examination of Export Ban on Rice in India (pdf)

Author:
Ben Groom and Mehroosh Tak
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
During the world food crisis of 2007-08, the price of staples soared rapidly. Higher food price impacts poor households more as they spend approximately three quarters of their income on food. Together rice and wheat provide more than 50% of the calorific intake in India. Apart from providing food security, millions of poor and small farmers depend on rice for their livelihoods. Using Indian Consumer Household Expenditure surveys for the years 2007-08 and 2009-10 the paper analyses the welfare generated by a ban on export of rice by the Indian government. The paper finds that the net impact of the ban on export of rice was positive, as it was able to cushion the Indian population (87% of whom are net consumers) from the adverse effects of the crisis. It also found that the poor in India aren’t homogeneous in nature. The majority of the rice-producing households that stand to gain from increased prices are relatively poor farmers. At the same time, the poor households that do not cultivate rice are most affected by price increase, as their budget share of rice is higher than richer households, who are more resilient to price rise. In particular, the wage labourers are affected significantly.
Topic:
Agriculture, Poverty, Food Security, Inequality, Exports, and Welfare
Political Geography:
India and Asia

16. Escaping the Vicious Cycle of Poverty: Towards Universal Access to Energy

Author:
Glada Lahn, Arno Behrens, Jorge Núñez Ferrer, Eike Dreblow, Mathilde Carraro, and Sebastian Veit
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
Despite the continuous efforts of developing countries and the international community to reduce energy poverty, some 2.7 billion people around the world still rely on traditional biomass for cooking and heating and 1.3 billion people do not have access to electricity. Over 80% of the energy poor live in rural areas and roughly two thirds in sub-Saharan Africa and India. While fossil fuels will inevitably play a major role in expanding on-grid energy supply, this study shows that renewable energy sources – and especially small decentralised solutions – have huge potential for providing reliable, sustainable and affordable energy services for the poor, particularly in rural areas of developing countries. Many challenges remain, including financing, capacity-building, technology transfer and governance reforms. A careful assessment of the environmental impacts of renewable energy technologies, particularly those on water, is an important prerequisite for donor finance. With the right design, energy access projects can also bring a host of developmental co-benefits. It should be possible for international initiatives including the UN's Year of Sustainable Energy for All and the EU's partnership with Africa to build on the rich experience and lessons learned from pilot projects over the last two decades in order to optimise donor effectiveness in this area.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Poverty, Science and Technology, United Nations, and Natural Resources
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and India

17. Rising Democracies and the Arab Awakening: Implications for Global Democracy and Human Rights

Author:
Ted Piccone and Emily Alinikoff
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
As the emerging global order takes shape, debate is growing more intense around the trajectory of the rising powers and what their ascendency to positions of regional and international influence means for the United States, its traditional allies, and global governance more broadly. Commentary about these rising powers— often referred to in a generic way as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) but actually encompassing a dozen or so countries largely represented in the G-20—ranges from alarmist to sanguine. Pessimists argue that China, with its impressive economic growth and increasingly global reach, is well-positioned to challenge the United States' role of global superpower and to weaken the commitment of other rising powers, and various international organizations, to liberal values. More optimistic analysts insist that the rise of middle powers, most of which are democracies of varying stripes, bodes well for the world: millions are being lifted out of poverty, rule of law is taking hold and the international system is bound to be a more inclusive, representative one.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, Economics, Globalization, Human Rights, International Trade and Finance, Markets, Poverty, and Governance
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, India, South Africa, Brazil, and Arabia

18. State Health Insurance and Out-of-Pocket Health Expenditures in Andhra Pradesh, India

Author:
Victoria Fan, Anup Karan, and Ajay Mahal
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
In 2007, the state of Andhra Pradesh in southern India began rolling out the Aarogyasri health insurance to reduce catastrophic health expenditures in households “below the poverty line.” We exploit variation in program roll-out over time and districts to evaluate the impacts of the scheme using difference-in-differences. Our results suggest that, within the first year of implementation, Phase I of Aarogyasri significantly reduced out-of-pocket inpatient expenditures and, to a lesser extent, outpatient expenditures. These results are robust to checks using quantile regression and matching methods. No clear effects on catastrophic health expenditures or medical impoverishment are seen. Aarogyasri is not benefiting scheduled caste and scheduled tribe households as much as the rest of the population.
Topic:
Health, Poverty, and Health Care Policy
Political Geography:
India, Asia, and Andhra Pradesh

19. Bridging the Gap? The New Philanthropy in India

Author:
Karl F. Inderfurth and Persis Khambatta
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Standard Poor's recently cut its outlook on India's investment rating from stable to negative. The decision was met with shock from India's Ministry of Finance, but it echoed a sentiment currently running through policy discussions about India—that investors and policymakers in and outside of India are looking at the central government with disbelief and disappointment over the stalling of further economic reforms.
Topic:
Security, Development, Economics, Poverty, and Food
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

20. Puncturing the 4 Myths about Latin America

Author:
Raul Rivera
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
Most people have grown used to thinking about Latin America as a region of marginal global importance: painfully poor, violent, politically and economically unstable and, to top it all, fragmented into some 20-odd countries, each one different from the other. So when Jerry Wind, founding editor of Wharton School Publishing, invited me to speak on Latin America at a Wharton conference aimed at senior U.S. executives, I wondered what a group of U.S. businesspeople would be interested to hear about the region. Who, after all, would want to do business in a place like that? But how accurate are those perceptions? As I prepared for my talk, my conclusion was: not much. Let's address the four principal myths about the region one by one. Myth 1: Latin America Really Does not Matter Economically To start, the territory of continental Latin America is larger than the U.S. and China combined, four times larger than the European Union, and seven times larger than India—a country roughly the size of Argentina. With almost every ecosystem represented, it is in fact the world's most biodiverse region, containing five of the world's ten most biodiverse countries. The region's bio-capacity (the biological productivity of the land measured in hectares per capita) is also larger than any other's. Witness the region's role in the global food chain: it is the largest producer of soybeans, coffee, sugar, bananas, orange juice, a leading fishmeal producer, and a major grain and meat exporter. Its mineral riches keep world industry running: silver, gold, copper, zinc, lead, tin, bismuth, molybdenum, rhenium, telurium, borium, strontium—you name it. And it produces one out of every six barrels of oil. In fact, much of the global community depends on Latin America's vast riches for its prosperity—indeed, for its survival. To that point: the Amazon basin plays a crucial role in the recycling of atmospheric carbon, absorbing one fourth of all global emissions. Latin America's population, now approaching 600 million, is twice that of the U.S. and significantly larger than the combined population of the European Union. Those numbers do not include some 50 million U.S. permanent residents and citizens who trace their origins back to the region (and keep close ties with it). By 2050, the region's population will have risen to an estimated 800 million. Latin America is not poor either. It boasts a per-capita GDP similar to the global average: $10,000. It is no richer or poorer than the rest of the world. In fact, 400 million people, or two-thirds of all Latin Americans, already belong to the global middle class, with their purchasing power fueling much of Latin America's growth. With some 200 million people still living in poverty, Latin America's poor are still numerous. But their ranks are declining fast, at a rate of 5 million a year over the past decade. As a result, its Gini coefficient improved by 10 percent between 2002 and 2008. In brief: the world's poor are now elsewhere—mainly in Asia and Africa. A population this large combined with average income levels have turned Latin America into the fourth largest economy in the world, with a regional GDP of some $6 trillion (purchasing power parity). That is larger than that of Russia and India's combined—larger, in fact, than that of any country or region other than the U.S., the EU and China. Not bad for a “region of marginal importance.” You could argue that Latin America's fragmentation into small, separate markets makes all the difference. But you would be wrong. As a result of the free-market reforms of the past decades, Latin America's economy is now the most open to trade in the developing world, with average tariffs down to 10 percent or less. Intraregional trade is booming. Most significantly, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru have signed bilateral free-trade agreements (with both the EU and the U.S., though Colombia's is waiting for the U.S. Congress' approval). These agreements are giving rise to a free-trade zone of some 200 million consumers, larger than Brazil and fully open to global trade. Surprisingly, it does not yet have a name—or a space among the BRICs. It will, though. Let's name these four countries the L-4 for now...
Topic:
Economics and Poverty
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, India, Brazil, Colombia, Latin America, Mexico, Chile, and Peru