Commodity-specific consumer expenditure in India: pro-poor or pro-rich

Jayanta Sen () and Debarati Das ()
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Jayanta Sen: West Bengal State University, Kolkata, India
Debarati Das: West Bengal State University, Kolkata, India

Economics Bulletin, 2018, vol. 38, issue 1, 501-508

Abstract: Almost all the developing countries in the world witnessed enormous economic growth accompanied by rising inequality in the era of globalization. Indian economy has also experienced high momentum in growth after economic reforms which results in per capita income/expenditure to increase. Patterns of consumer expenditure on different food and non-food commodities/ items have undergone substantial changes. Our interest is to judge whether expenditure patterns of different commodities/items have truly followed the pattern of aggregate expenditure. An attempt has been made in this paper to examine whether and to what extent household consumer expenditure at the commodity level has been pro-poor (in favour of poorer section) in India after economic reforms. A Structural Identification Index (SII) has been formulated in order to identify the expenditure pattern and to estimate the degree of pro-poorness or pro-richness quantitatively. National Sample Survey data on consumer expenditure (Uniform Recall Period) for three time periods- 1993-94, 2004-05 and 2009-10 are used in estimation.

Keywords: Consumer Expenditure; Commodities; Distribution; Pro-Poor; Pro-rich (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I3 O1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-02-27
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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