In the past decade-and-a-half, sex workers in Kolkata (India) red-light districts have involved themselves in a STD-HIV health project and, at the same time, formed an autonomous organization to protest against exploitation and to challenge social norms that ostracize them. This paper examines...

The article examines why the automotive industry invested over US$20 billion in Brazil in the second half of the 1990s, focusing on how political economy factors influenced investment decisions. It is argued that, in a context of economic and policy uncertainty, when the state creates...

The use of income distribution indicators in the economics literature has increased considerably in recent years. Using household surveys from 18 Latin American and Caribbean countries, this article seeks to explore what is behind the numbers, and what information they convey. We find that the...

Violence impedes human freedom to live safely and securely, and can sustain poverty traps in many communities. A key challenge for academics, policy-makers and practitioners working broadly in programmes aimed at poverty alleviation, including violence prevention, is the lack of reliable and...

The paper considers the role that the international human rights framework should play in the extension and application of Sen's capability approach. It discusses how emerging international standards in the field of human rights, supported by international human rights law, provide a basis for...

This article proposes a short list of internationally comparable indicators of individual agency and empowerment (and the corresponding survey questions). Data from these indicators would enable researchers to explore research and policy issues such as the interconnections between empowerment...

This paper contributes to the debate on the role of technical change and industrial policy in Indonesian economic growth using the pulp and paper industry as a case study. The analysis indicates that industry and trade policies had a positive influence on growth and capital accumulation, but...

The estimation of equivalence scales is crucial in cases where a well-being comparison of persons living under different household arrangements is needed: for example, to identify the poor, to calculate poverty rates and to estimate income inequality. In spite of the importance of equivalence...

Using panel data for Peru for the period 1994-2000, we found that increases in household welfare, as measured by changes in consumption, are larger when households receive two or more services jointly than when services are provided separately. Such increases appear to be more than proportional,...

Shame and humiliation are central to the understanding of poverty yet internationally comparable data on this dimension are missing. Based on existing indicators from related fields, this article suggests eight indicators to measure specific aspects of shame and humiliation that could start an...