There is also a measurement problem with industrialization: extremely poor farmers with no income made all their own stuff. With industrialization, they left the farms, moved to the cities, got paid a little more, and had to buy their stuff instead of making it. They made more money, the GDP went up, but in reality they were worse off.
this econometric exercise does not identify a bias in poverty statistics. the residuals from a panel regression of life expectancy on poverty rates can reveal which places have worse changes in health outcomes than would be expected based on changes in their poverty levels. but there is no reason to think that the relationship between poverty rates and health is stable or strong enough to merit interpreting this as a bias.
consider the literature on health and recessions. many studies find mixed evidence of recessions on health outcomes. people are definitely poorer during recessions. it would be a mistake to infer that we are mis-measuring recessions because health outcomes don't decline enough.
it is entirely possible for extreme poverty to decline while levels of malnutrition remain elevated (though note that according to the link you cite, rates of stunting are declining over time in india). extreme poverty is an ad hoc definition of poverty (1$ a day in 1996 prices) but more moderate forms of poverty are also strongly associated with child malnutrition that leads to stunting. it is difficult to feed a child to reach full height at 2$ a day or 5$ a day, but going from 1$ a day to 2$ a day is still a decline in poverty.
"it is difficult to feed a child to reach full height at 2$ a day or 5$ a day, but going from 1$ a day to 2$ a day is still a decline in poverty." - the whole point of the article is that poverty =/= a statistic, it is a social phenomenon that may or may not be captured by some quantitative measure, be that household income or anything else. To accept that an increase in 1$ to 2$ a day is definitionally a decline in poverty is an act of misguided reification.
"the whole point of the article is that poverty =/= a statistic"
that wasn't my interpretation of the argument. if PT doesn't think poverty can be quantified, why did he provide a quantitative analysis? PT's claim is that "Extreme Poverty Statistics Are Unreliable", not that poverty is inherently unquantifiable.
"To accept that an increase in 1$ to 2$ a day is definitionally a decline in poverty is an act of misguided reification."
defining a decrease in poverty as an increase in income (ceteris paribus) is tautological. i do not think you know what the word "reification" means.
I think my interpretation is implicit in the test. Quantification of a social phenomenon is not the same as mistaking that quantification for the thing itself. This is what I mean by reification. I understand full well that the definition is tautological - I think its a bad definition! (and so I hope does PT) The point about reification is relevant because of the earlier paragraph in which you say: "it is entirely possible for extreme poverty to decline while levels of malnutrition remain elevated". It is this kind of formalism about what 'extreme poverty' actually *is* that I object to. It makes you resistant to the obvious conclusion that if malnutrition is still elevated they are still just as poor! And I think PT makes this point at the beginning of his article.
Stunting in India is not caused only by having "not enough to eat", especially Group 1 stunting-at-birth, which has lifetime impact and is largely or completely irreversible.
[refs: Dr Patrick Webb, and USAID's "lessons learned" every 10 years or so; search also: < "Indian Enigma" and stunting > ]
Other likely factors in Group 1 stunting-at-birth:
- mycotoxins during pregnancy and in weaning foods
- lack of diet variety
- maternal anaemia in pre-pregnancy and first trimester
- kitchen smoke during pregnancy
- lack of folate in pre-pregnancy
Associations:
- maternal education, especially high school completion
- birth spacing
- poverty
- short maternal stature
I'm trying to find your recent post about stunting and low weight in India. Do you have a link?
I'm not sure the neoliberal counterrevolution took place in India...And only muted in Europe.
(Although many European progressive middle class citizens ((who currently show a remarkable - for 'progressives' - preference for censorship and shadow banning btw)) seem to believe the Rhinelandic model ceased to exist decades ago. But i guess they think that because they don't look at gov share in gdp, and they don't open Piketty's website and search for graphs of their country's income pre and post taxation).
It did take place in India, after 1991. And it certainly took place in Europe (Mitterrand, Schröder, Thatcher/Blaire), often more thoroughly than in the US!
'Taking place' can mean anything. Every country has it's own 'economics' since it's fueled by local culture and preferences. Claiming this 'often more thoroughly than in the US!' is hysterical (hence the exclamation mark i guess).
Then again, left wing Americans have made a habit of projecting their own societal experiences, imperfections and preferences on Europe (like Europeans like to point at US imperfections - almost always Republican in nature, in that sense the EU Left lives in a mono culture) and declare them true over there as well, if not universially true (Naomi Wolf for instance).
India came from a heavily protectionist position that not exactly favoured it's poor.
Putting Mitterand and Schröder in the same sentence as Thatcher and Blair is more than a firm misrepresentation of political, economical and cultural differences between the UK and the continent. Mitterand nationalized French industry in the early eighties FGS, only to be forced to make a uturn as his economy worsened.
The Thatcher era was a reaction to the UKs miserable 1970s with massive inflation (the 'Barber bomb'), an IMF bail out, strikes, collapsing industries and violence. Regardless of a labour or tory gov, since the late 60s the UK has underperformed vs its continental peers ie rivals. For a thorough, and funny, idea of the Uk 1980s (and its culture of violence and negativity) watch One night in Turin (the beginning only if you hate Football) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcllHFaHTYE&t=3s
I am absolutely *not* an expert but I believe this issue is known and I assume people play along because ... they hope to stay relevant in countries that are important.
There is also a measurement problem with industrialization: extremely poor farmers with no income made all their own stuff. With industrialization, they left the farms, moved to the cities, got paid a little more, and had to buy their stuff instead of making it. They made more money, the GDP went up, but in reality they were worse off.
this econometric exercise does not identify a bias in poverty statistics. the residuals from a panel regression of life expectancy on poverty rates can reveal which places have worse changes in health outcomes than would be expected based on changes in their poverty levels. but there is no reason to think that the relationship between poverty rates and health is stable or strong enough to merit interpreting this as a bias.
consider the literature on health and recessions. many studies find mixed evidence of recessions on health outcomes. people are definitely poorer during recessions. it would be a mistake to infer that we are mis-measuring recessions because health outcomes don't decline enough.
it is entirely possible for extreme poverty to decline while levels of malnutrition remain elevated (though note that according to the link you cite, rates of stunting are declining over time in india). extreme poverty is an ad hoc definition of poverty (1$ a day in 1996 prices) but more moderate forms of poverty are also strongly associated with child malnutrition that leads to stunting. it is difficult to feed a child to reach full height at 2$ a day or 5$ a day, but going from 1$ a day to 2$ a day is still a decline in poverty.
"it is difficult to feed a child to reach full height at 2$ a day or 5$ a day, but going from 1$ a day to 2$ a day is still a decline in poverty." - the whole point of the article is that poverty =/= a statistic, it is a social phenomenon that may or may not be captured by some quantitative measure, be that household income or anything else. To accept that an increase in 1$ to 2$ a day is definitionally a decline in poverty is an act of misguided reification.
"the whole point of the article is that poverty =/= a statistic"
that wasn't my interpretation of the argument. if PT doesn't think poverty can be quantified, why did he provide a quantitative analysis? PT's claim is that "Extreme Poverty Statistics Are Unreliable", not that poverty is inherently unquantifiable.
"To accept that an increase in 1$ to 2$ a day is definitionally a decline in poverty is an act of misguided reification."
defining a decrease in poverty as an increase in income (ceteris paribus) is tautological. i do not think you know what the word "reification" means.
I think my interpretation is implicit in the test. Quantification of a social phenomenon is not the same as mistaking that quantification for the thing itself. This is what I mean by reification. I understand full well that the definition is tautological - I think its a bad definition! (and so I hope does PT) The point about reification is relevant because of the earlier paragraph in which you say: "it is entirely possible for extreme poverty to decline while levels of malnutrition remain elevated". It is this kind of formalism about what 'extreme poverty' actually *is* that I object to. It makes you resistant to the obvious conclusion that if malnutrition is still elevated they are still just as poor! And I think PT makes this point at the beginning of his article.
Stunting in India is not caused only by having "not enough to eat", especially Group 1 stunting-at-birth, which has lifetime impact and is largely or completely irreversible.
[refs: Dr Patrick Webb, and USAID's "lessons learned" every 10 years or so; search also: < "Indian Enigma" and stunting > ]
Other likely factors in Group 1 stunting-at-birth:
- mycotoxins during pregnancy and in weaning foods
- lack of diet variety
- maternal anaemia in pre-pregnancy and first trimester
- kitchen smoke during pregnancy
- lack of folate in pre-pregnancy
Associations:
- maternal education, especially high school completion
- birth spacing
- poverty
- short maternal stature
I'm trying to find your recent post about stunting and low weight in India. Do you have a link?
I'm not sure the neoliberal counterrevolution took place in India...And only muted in Europe.
(Although many European progressive middle class citizens ((who currently show a remarkable - for 'progressives' - preference for censorship and shadow banning btw)) seem to believe the Rhinelandic model ceased to exist decades ago. But i guess they think that because they don't look at gov share in gdp, and they don't open Piketty's website and search for graphs of their country's income pre and post taxation).
It did take place in India, after 1991. And it certainly took place in Europe (Mitterrand, Schröder, Thatcher/Blaire), often more thoroughly than in the US!
'Taking place' can mean anything. Every country has it's own 'economics' since it's fueled by local culture and preferences. Claiming this 'often more thoroughly than in the US!' is hysterical (hence the exclamation mark i guess).
Then again, left wing Americans have made a habit of projecting their own societal experiences, imperfections and preferences on Europe (like Europeans like to point at US imperfections - almost always Republican in nature, in that sense the EU Left lives in a mono culture) and declare them true over there as well, if not universially true (Naomi Wolf for instance).
India came from a heavily protectionist position that not exactly favoured it's poor.
Putting Mitterand and Schröder in the same sentence as Thatcher and Blair is more than a firm misrepresentation of political, economical and cultural differences between the UK and the continent. Mitterand nationalized French industry in the early eighties FGS, only to be forced to make a uturn as his economy worsened.
The Thatcher era was a reaction to the UKs miserable 1970s with massive inflation (the 'Barber bomb'), an IMF bail out, strikes, collapsing industries and violence. Regardless of a labour or tory gov, since the late 60s the UK has underperformed vs its continental peers ie rivals. For a thorough, and funny, idea of the Uk 1980s (and its culture of violence and negativity) watch One night in Turin (the beginning only if you hate Football) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcllHFaHTYE&t=3s
Did not Dick Armey say "You tell me who did the study, and I'll tell you what results they got."?
Speaking of nutrition during China's '59-'61 famine, Amartya Sen said, "Even China's worst years were better than India's best".
One reason for that is that Mao had spent 22 years feeding huge armies on the march, under fire so, despite what we hear, nobody starved to death.
India clearly lacks this self-organizing capability and a capacity for self-reflection and correction so evident in East Asians.
Everybody is being polite. India will remain irrelevant.
https://twitter.com/roadscholarz/status/1645406453753159682?s=19
I am absolutely *not* an expert but I believe this issue is known and I assume people play along because ... they hope to stay relevant in countries that are important.