Amaresh Dubey

In this note, we assess the newly introduced Industrial Relations Code (IRC) 2020. First, we compare the provisions in IRC 2020 with its predecessor, Industrial Disputes Act (IDA) 1947, and the amendments to IDA 1947 in 1976 and 1982 regarding the employment protection provisions against layoffs, retrenchments, and closures. We find that IRC 2020 m...

In this paper, we investigate expenditure on R&D activities and its determinants in the organised manufacturing sector. We use balanced panel data drawn from the Indian Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) for the years 2015-16 to 2017-18 that has information on firms’ major characteristics and also has details on the R&D activities of the firms. We e...

How was labour hit by the pandemic in different contexts? What strategies were applied to cope with the labour and economic challenges faced by different countries? What are the similarities and differences of the impact of COVID-19 in the regions of the world for workers of various industries, considering the gender and racial aspects? This book b...

We improve upon the modelling of India's pandemic vulnerability. Our model is multidisciplinary and recognises the nested levels of the epidemic. We create a model of the risk of severe COVID-19 and death, instead of a model of transmission. Our model allows for socio-demographic-group differentials in risk, obesity and underweight people, morbidit...

We improve upon the modelling of India’s pandemic vulnerability. Our model is multi-disciplinary and recognises the nested levels of the epidemic. We create a model of the risk of severe COVID-19 and death, instead of a model of transmission. Our model allows for socio-demographic-group differentials in risk, obesity and underweight people, morbidi...

Indian economy has undergone important structural changes leading to high growth and poverty reduction in the last few decades. Rural economy has also registered significant changes during this period. Important among them is the growth in non-farm sector’s share in rural income and employment. This study intends to examine the following two questi...

This paper delves into the debates concerning labour market flexibility in India and suggests an improved measure of labour market flexibility to overcome the shortcomings of the existing measures. A state-wise time-variant composite index considering both de jure and de facto indicators of flexibility is constructed to account for the stringency o...

Large-scale demographic datasets with spatial information provide a rich platform for human development research. Much emphasis is often placed on understanding deviations from dataset-level behavior across demographic attributes within spatially coherent regions, since those could point to a local condition worth addressing through regional polici...

This article finds an appreciable rate of reduction in poverty at about 1.6% 1 annually between 2004-05 and 2011-12 in the state, which has been largely in rural 2 areas and that too among SCs and Others and across economic regions. In contrast, the 3 incidence of poverty increased in urban areas of the state by 1.32% during 2004-05 4 to 2011-12, s...

Urban poverty in most of the developing world is considered a spillover of rural poverty. With increasing pace of development in these countries, urban settlements are assimilating migrants searching for better livelihood opportunities and who could be vulnerable and poor in the urban settlements. This article empirically assesses the levels of urb...

Large-scale demographic datasets with spatial information provide a rich platform for human development research. Much emphasis is often placed on understanding deviations from dataset-level behavior across demographic attributes within spatially coherent regions, since those could point to a local condition worth addressing through regional polici...

The significant fall in the labour force participation of rural women between 2004 and 2011 has been an issue that has generated considerable academic interest. In this paper, the authors look at thirty years of comparable NSS data from 1983 to 2011 of rural women’s participation in the labour force using a variety of definitions of female labour f...

Using a unique panel data set for the rural areas of most of India’s major states for the period 1993/94–2004/05, income mobility and poverty dynamics across social groups are studied. We find evidence for considerable income mobility: about 70% of households that are among the poorest 20% in 1993 are no longer in that category in 2005. Poverty red...

Dual-sector model propounded by Lewis (Manchester Sch 22(2):39–191, (1954) and Kuznets (Am Econ Rev 63(6):247–258, 1973) holds that with the economic development workers move from farm to off-farm sector. The off-farm occupation diversification contributes to household/individual well-being as well as in overall economic growth and development thro...

We evaluate the impact of educational reforms starting from the mid-1990s in India on the school attendance rate of low-income rural children aged 6–14 compared to ineligible rural children, employing NSSO data from 1983 to 2004/2005. We estimate a triple difference model allowing for differential (linear) trends and find a positive causal effect o...

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was enacted in 2005 and has completed a little over a decade in India. It is the largest public employment programme in the world and has promoted a wider participation from rural households across the country. This paper examines the issue of programme participation in MGNREGA ho...

The study examines the dynamic nature of movements into and out of poverty over a period when poverty has fallen substantially in India. The analysis identifies people who escaped poverty and those who fell into it over the period 2005-12. Using panel data from the India Human Development Survey for 2005 and 2012, we find that the risks of marginal...

This book presents an extensive study on India’s agricultural and nonfarm sectors, examining prices, investments and policies, and suggesting various essential technological changes. It offers appropriate financial, institutional, and policy frameworks that can help to sustain agricultural growth and augment farmers’ incomes across geographical loc...

This chapter examines income inequality in India. LIS income data for India confirm that the income inequality in India (with a Gini of 0.48) is in the same range as for other low- and middle-income countries. Earlier estimates for Indian inequality have been lower because they were based on expenditure data. Separate estimates for 22 Indian states...

In Uttar Pradesh, teams of four are engaged to dig soil under the NREGA programme. In one treatment spouses work together; in the other treatment they work in separate teams. Working with spouses is associated with significantly higher output.

Recent debates regarding inclusion of caste in 2011 Census have raised questions about whether caste still matters in modern India. Ethnographic studies of the mid-20th century identified a variety of dimensions along which caste differentiation occurs. At the same time, whether this differentiation translates into hierarchy remains a contentious i...

This paper examines the changes in poverty incidence and monthly per capita expenditure in India using the National Sample Survey's unit record data of three rounds, 1993-94,2004-05 and 2009-10. The changes in poverty and growth in MPCE have been measured for major socio-religious and economic groups in both rural and urban sectors. This is complem...

This paper attempts to estimate the impact of PDS on poverty and calorie deficiency. First we have undertaken an analysis of the households that have access to the PDS, what they purchase, and what are their rupee savings due to their access to the PDS. Next we estimate its impact on poverty levels (as is conventionally defined) due to the existenc...

In this paper we provide an elaborate exposition of different facets of unemployment within the NER. The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the incidence of unemployment among the seven northeastern states. This study also highlights other relevant issues like relationship of unemployment with education and poverty.

The objective of this paper is to investigate the inter-state and inter-regional disparities in poverty incidence and levels of living in the rural and urban sectors of India. In this paper, we propose to analyse regional disparities using a more disaggregated data. It is known that there are significant variations in the agro-climatic conditions w...

Using a unique household panel data set for rural India covering the years 1993/1994 and 2004/2005 we test a key theoretical assertion of caste and its effects, namely that marginalised social groups fare worse in terms of income levels when resident in villages dominated by upper castes. We also test whether marginalised groups perform better or w...

This article analyses poverty and undernutrition in two of India's poorest states – Orissa and West Bengal. We describe poverty and undernutrition in these two states, focusing on within-state differences. We argue that the persistence of the differences within Orissa is due to ‘structural inequalities’ in the access to and delivery of central gove...

Economists have focused on job search and supply-side explanations for network effects in labour transactions. This paper develops and tests an alternative explanation for the high prevalence of network-based labour market entry in developing countries. In our theoretical framework, employers use employee networks as screening and incentive mechani...

There is a large body of literature that highlights growing inter-regional disparities in India. However, intra-state disparities have not elicited similar attention, primarily due to the non-availability of comparable data at the sub-Nss region level. This paper uses NSS consumption expenditure survey data for two recent quinquennial rounds to cal...

This paper examines regional disparity in India from the perspective of the smallest geographical unit for which a consisent set of data is available: the district. By doing so, we are able to focus on pockets of deprivation rather than viewing deprivation as a phenomenon affecting a state or a region in its entirety: ‘forward’ states have deprived...

This article investigates the effect of jobs reservation on improving the economic opportunities of persons belonging to India’s Scheduled Castes (SC)and Scheduled Tribes (ST). Using employment data from the 55th NSS round, the authors estimate the probabilities of different social groups in India being in one of three categories of economic status...

Are adverse sex ratios in India largely due to intra-household discrimination of females? Received wisdom holds that the answer is, "yes". We have two reasons to doubt this. First, we show that poverty is associated with better, not worse, sex ratios in India. Second, we quantify the number of missing women in India due to its actual sex ratio at b...

This paper examines the empirical implications of the Lewis Model with respect to the relationship between the phenomenon of surplus labour in rural areas and out-migration from these areas to urban areas. It does so by using a micro-economic data set of migrants and non-migrants for India. We find strong empirical support for the key prediction of...

We model fertility as endogenous to the family's economic status because poor households choose to have large families in the absence of adequate social insurance. Because of a strong son preference in India, having two girls first can proxy an exogenous increase in fertility, and is therefore a good instrument for fertility in determining poverty...

In the first of this series of three papers we criticised the consumer price indexes based on unit values calculated from the unit records of the NSS Consumer Expenditure Surveys (NSS CES) which have been used to calculated new poverty lines for Indian states by Deaton and Tarrozi, 1999, Deaton, 2003a. This second paper examines the calculation of...

This is the first part of three papers in which we revisit issues surrounding poverty calculations in India during the 1980s, and 1990s. A number of recent papers have put forward or endorsed Poverty calculations based on poverty lines computed using Unit Values. (expenditure divided by quantity) of food. And fuel and light items in the National Sa...

This is the third in a set of papers discussing Poverty Lines (PL) and poverty aggregates in India published in this journal (Dubey and Palmer-Jones, 2005a; 2005b. In earlier papers we criticised the Unit Value based CPIs and the method of computing PLs from these UV CPIs which have been proposed as an improvement over the official CPIs used to com...

This paper investigates the effect of jobs reservation on improving the economic opportunities to persons belonging to India's Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST). Using employment data from the 55th NSS round we estimate the probabilities of different social groups in India being in one of three categories of economic status: own accou...

The extent and nature of disparities within Orissa, particularly, regional, social and gender disparities, needs no emphasis. Drawing on concepts of social exclusion, and on both quantitative and qualitative evidence, this article looks at poverty in its multidimensional nature, ranging from income poverty to human development indicators of health...

This paper analyses the status of public distribution system and its role to deal with the problem of food security among the states in the North-Eastern region of India. The main finding of the paper is that poverty has increased in the NER states. It appears that Public Distribution system is widely accessible to households of the region but it i...

The gender of the first two children is used as a natural experiment to estimate the causal effect of fertility on poverty of rural nucleus households in India. In India, male children are viewed as a better source of insurance and support to the family in old age. Thus, having two girls can proxy an exogenous increase in fertility. Using household...

Incl. abstract, bibl., tables.

This paper investigates the incidence of poverty in Indian towns and cities of various sizes of population. It also tests the hypothesis that larger towns and cities, because of their size, are capable of supporting more complex economic activities, improving labor productivity, and hence lowering the incidence of poverty. In particular, similar le...

In an empirical microeconomic analysis that allows individual heterogeneity, we test four main hypotheses from the recent macroeconomic literature on child labor: the substitution, subsistence, capital market and parental education hypotheses. Using two rich Indian data sets, we find that the reduction in child labor and/or non-school-enrollment...

This paper reports the incidence of poverty and inequality in the metropolitan cities in India for two years, 1987-88 and 1993-94. The household level consumer expenditure and employment and unemployment data have been used to calculate poverty and inequality indices and levels of living in the metropolitan cities. Using the existing methodology of...

Using original data from a newly collected nationwide survey of 41,554 households in India, we examine the use of income, expenditure, and asset measures of economic standing. While expenditure and asset measures are often included in developing country surveys, this survey is unusual in including estimates of household income as well. We describe...

Using a unique panel data set for rural India for the period 1993/94 - 2004/05 we test the hypothesis that disadvantaged groups (Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Muslims) fare worse in terms of income growth and poverty reduction when they live in villages that are dominated by forward castes. We consider dominance in the sense of numerical d...