Probably the most important immediate cause of starvation during the 1974 famine in Bangladesh was a sharp drop in the food purchasing power of agricultural earnings. Past work has attempted to explain this in terms of conditions in food markets. An econometric investigation of wage movements...

Survey-based welfare indicators can fluctuate over time in ways which have little to do with macroeconomic changes in the economy. So basing policy decisions on short-term movements in such welfare indicators can be hazardous. There was a sharp increase in India's poverty measures in the...