Our study examines changes in diets over the period 1993-2009. Diets have shifted away from cereals towards higher consumption of fruits, vegetables, oils and livestock products. Using household data, a food diversity index (FDI) is constructed, based on five food commodities. Significant price...

In response to the Deaton and Dreze (2009) explanation of a downward shift in the calorie Engel curve in terms of lower requirements due to health improvements and lower activity levels in India, we develop an alternative explanation embedded in a standard demand theory framework, with food...

Our analysis illustrates one pathway between agriculture and nutrition through production of nutrients by crop and size as well as through livestock. As this pathway is subsumed in agriculture and nutrition studies focusing on anthropometric outcomes, and hardly any light is thrown on the...

Our study examines changes in diets over the period 1993-2009. Diets have shifted away from cereals towards higher consumption of fruits, vegetables, oils and livestock products. Using household data, a food diversity index (FDI) is constructed, based on five food commodities. Significant price...

Using official data this paper evaluates India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) according to four criteria a) average number of days of employment per household, b) percentage of households completing 100 days of employment under NREGS, c) percentage of expenditure against...

The objective of this analysis is mainly to construct an intuitive measure of the performance of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in India -a nation-wide poverty alleviation programme which was introduced in 2005. The focus is on excess demand at the district level. Some...

Despite accelerated growth there is pervasive hunger, child undernutrition and mortality. Our analysis focuses on their determinants. Raising living standards alone will not reduce hunger and undernutrition. Reduction of rural/urban disparities, income inequality, consumer price stabilisation,...

We test for the existence of a Poverty Nutrition Trap (PNT) in the case of calories and four important micronutrients — carotene, iron, riboflavin, and thiamine- for three categories of wages: sowing, harvesting, and other for male and female workers separately. We use household level national...

This paper tests for the existence of a Poverty Nutrition Trap (PNT) in the case of the nutrient most likely to have productivity impacts, i.e., calories, for three categories of wages – sowing, harvesting, and other – and for male and female workers separately. We use household level...

This paper analyses the effects of access to Rural Public Works (RPW) and Public Distribution System (PDS), a public food subsidy programme, on consumption poverty, vulnerability and undernutrition in India drawing upon the large household data sets constructed by National Sample Survey (NSS)...