IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jdevst/v45y2009i5p746-768.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Microeconomic Determinants of Income Inequality in Rural Pakistan

Author

Listed:
  • Felix Naschold

Abstract

Inequality matters for poverty reduction. However, it is often unclear what policy could do to change the distribution of income as to date there is little quantitative evidence about the household characteristics that determine the level of income inequality and its changes over time. This paper sets out to identify these determinants by adapting a regression-based inequality decomposition technique and applying it to panel data from rural Pakistan. Land ownership is key to explaining the level of inequality, but not its changes. In contrast, higher education drives changes, but not the level of inequality. Household location affects both, reflecting growing differences in market access across regions.

Suggested Citation

  • Felix Naschold, 2009. "Microeconomic Determinants of Income Inequality in Rural Pakistan," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(5), pages 746-768.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:45:y:2009:i:5:p:746-768
    DOI: 10.1080/00220380902753193
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220380902753193
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00220380902753193?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adams, Richard H, Jr & Alderman, Harold, 1992. "Sources of Income Inequality in Rural Pakistan: A Decomposition Analysis," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 54(4), pages 591-608, November.
    2. Alderman, Harold & Garcia, Marito, 1993. "Poverty, household food security, and nutrition in rural Pakistan:," Research reports 96, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    3. Dorosh, Paul A. & Malik, Sohail J., 2006. "Transitions Out of Poverty: Drivers of Real Income Growth for the Poor in Rural Pakistan," 2006 Annual Meeting, August 12-18, 2006, Queensland, Australia 25387, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Kanbur, Ravi & Lustig, Nora, 1999. "Why is Inequality Back on the Agenda?," Working Papers 127690, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    5. Adams, Richard H. Jr. & He, Jane J., 1995. "Sources of income inequality and poverty in rural Pakistan:," Research reports 102, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Khadija Shams & Alexander Kadow, 2020. "Income inequality, remittances and economic wellbeing in rural Pakistan: linkages and empirical evidence," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 499-519, June.
    2. Mulubrhan Amare & Bekele Shiferaw & Hiroyuki Takeshima & George Mavrotas, 2021. "Variability in agricultural productivity and rural household consumption inequality: Evidence from Nigeria and Uganda," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 52(1), pages 19-36, January.
    3. Nuno Crespo & Nádia Simões & Ana Paula Diogo, 2012. "Determinant Factors of Income Inequality – Evidence from a Portuguese Region," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(3), pages 2056-2064.
    4. Mohsen Ayyash & Siok Kun Sek, 2020. "Decomposing Inequality in Household Consumption Expenditure in Malaysia," Economies, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-15, October.
    5. Bożena Kusz & Dariusz Kusz & Iwona Bąk & Maciej Oesterreich & Ludwik Wicki & Grzegorz Zimon, 2022. "Selected Economic Determinants of Labor Profitability in Family Farms in Poland in Relation to Economic Size," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-25, October.
    6. Amirah El-Haddad & May Gadallah, 2018. "The Informalization of the Egyptian Economy (1998-2012): A Factor in Growing Wage Inequality?," Working Papers 1210, Economic Research Forum, revised 12 Jun 2018.
    7. Paolo Verme & Branko Milanovic & Sherine Al-Shawarby & Sahar El Tawila & May Gadallah & Enas Ali A. El-Majeed, 2014. "Inside Inequality in the Arab Republic of Egypt : Facts and Perceptions across People, Time, and Space," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 17583, December.
    8. Govinda P. Sharma & Ram Pandit & Ben White & Maksym Polyakov, 2020. "The income diversification strategies of smallholders in the hills of Nepal," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 38(6), pages 804-825, November.
    9. Ebru Çaglayan & Naime Irem Kosan & Melek Astar, 2012. "An Empirical Analysis of the Determinants of Household Poverty in Turkey," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 2(1), pages 181-191, March.
    10. Lwin Lwin Aung & Peter Warr, 2021. "Decomposing changes in inequality: Evidence from Myanmar," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 1172-1196, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hari Ram Lohano, 2009. "Poverty Dynamics in Rural Sindh, Pakistan," Working Papers id:2334, eSocialSciences.
    2. Naschold, Felix, 2016. "Measuring Poverty Over Time - Accounting for the intertemporal distribution of poverty," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235722, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Marcel Fafchamps & Agnes R. Quisumbing, 1999. "Human Capital, Productivity, and Labor Allocation in Rural Pakistan," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 34(2), pages 369-406.
    4. Espen Villanger, 2003. "The effects of disasters on income mobility: Bootstrap inference and measurement error simulations," CMI Working Papers WP 2003:6, CMI (Chr. Michelsen Institute), Bergen, Norway.
    5. Marcel Fafchamps & Agnes R. Quisumbing, 2003. "Social roles, human capital, and the intrahousehold division of labor: evidence from Pakistan," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 55(1), pages 36-80, January.
    6. Dorosh, Paul A. & Malik, Sohail J., 2006. "Transitions Out of Poverty: Drivers of Real Income Growth for the Poor in Rural Pakistan," 2006 Annual Meeting, August 12-18, 2006, Queensland, Australia 25387, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    7. Delgado, Christopher L. & Siamwalla, Ammar, 1997. "Rural economy and farm income diversification in developing countries," MTID discussion papers 20, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    8. Neil McCulloch & Bob Baulch, 2000. "Simulating the impact of policy upon chronic and transitory poverty in rural Pakistan," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(6), pages 100-130.
    9. Delgado, Christopher L. & Siamwalla, Ammar, 1997. "Rural Economy and Farm Income Diversification in Developing Countries," 1997 Conference, August 10-16, 1997, Sacramento, California 197035, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    10. Gelaw, Fekadu, 2009. "The Relationship Between Poverty, Inequality, and Growth in the Rural Ethiopia: Micro Evidence," 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China 51915, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    11. Estudillo, Jonna P. & Quisumbing, Agnes R. & Otsuka, Keijiro, 2001. "Income distribution in rice-growing villages during the post-Green Revolution periods: the Philippine case, 1985 and 1998," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 71-84, June.
    12. Pierre Dubois & Bruno Jullien & Thierry Magnac, 2008. "Formal and Informal Risk Sharing in LDCs: Theory and Empirical Evidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(4), pages 679-725, July.
    13. Kanbur, Ravi & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2001. "Fifty Years Of Regional Inequality In China: A Journey Through Revolution, Reform And Openness," Working Papers 7236, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    14. repec:pru:wpaper:21 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Isabel Ortiz & Matthew Cummins, 2011. "Global Inequality: Beyond the Bottom Billion – A Rapid Review of Income Distribution in 141 Countries," Working papers 1102, UNICEF,Division of Policy and Strategy.
    16. Chen, Jing & Rozelle, Scott, 2003. "Market Emergence And The Rise And Fall Of Backyard Hog Production In China," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 21969, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    17. Haddad, Lawrence & Bhattarai, Saroj & Immink, Maarten & Kumar, Shubh, 1998. "Estimating the interactions between household food security and preschool diarrhea," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(3-4), pages 241-261, November.
    18. Delgado, Christopher L. & Rosegrant, Mark W. & Steinfeld, Henning & Ehui, Simeon K. & Courbois, Claude, 1999. "Livestock to 2020: the next food revolution," 2020 vision briefs 61, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    19. Arne Bigsten & Jörgen Levin, 2001. "Growth, Income Distribution, and Poverty," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2001-129, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    20. Basu, Karna & Wong, Maisy, 2015. "Evaluating seasonal food storage and credit programs in east Indonesia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 200-216.
    21. Basu, Karna & Wong, Maisy, 2012. "Evaluating Seasonal Food Security Programs in East Indonesia," MPRA Paper 51219, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:45:y:2009:i:5:p:746-768. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/FJDS20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.