Revisiting Inequality

Achin Chakraborty is a Professor of Economics and the Director at Institute of Development Studies Kolkata (IDSK). He was a visiting professor at Sciences Po, Paris, and was a CICOPS Fellow at the University of Pavia, Italy. He has published widely in peer-reviewed journals including Economic Theory, BMJ Global Health, Social Indicators Research, Economics Bulletin, Journal of Quantitative Economics, and Environment and Development Economics. He co-edited three books – The Land Question in India: State, Dispossession and Capitalist Transition (OUP, 2017), Changing Contexts and Shifting Roles of the Indian State (Springer, 2019), and ‘Capital’ in the East (Springer, 2019). He has jointly authored the book Limits of Bargaining: Capital, Labour, and the State in Contemporary India (CUP, 2019). Simantini Mukhopadhyay is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Institute of Development Studies Kolkata (IDSK), India. Her areas of interest include health economics, economics of poverty and inequality, and theoretical foundations of the capability approach. She has published her work in several international journals like BMJ Open, BMJ Global Health, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Journal of Biosocial Science, and Child Indicators Research, among others. She received the SPANDAN Grant supported by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2020 for undertaking a short study. She visited the University of Pavia in Italy as CICOPS Fellow for 12 weeks in 2022.

List of Tables ix List of Contributors xi 1 Introduction 1 ACHIN CHAKRABORTY AND SIMANTINI MUKHOPADHYAY 2 Instrumentality of Inequality 19 NARENDAR PANI 3 ‘Inclusiveness’ of Growth in the Light of the Analytics of Optimal Anti-Poverty Budgetary Policy 39 S. SUBRAMANIAN 4 A Synthesis of Local and Effective Tax Progressivity Measurement 58 SATYA R. CHAKRAVARTY AND PALASH SARKAR 5 How Unequal are Indian States? 83 S. CHANDRASEKHAR, KARTHIKEYA NARAPARAJU, AND AJAY SHARMA 6 Unpacking Convergence in Child Undernutrition across the Indian States 97 SIMANTINI MUKHOPADHYAY 7 Does Caste Matter in Business Earnings in India? Comparing States from Three Regions with Different Socio-economic and Political Settings 118 MANASI BERA AND AMARESH DUBEY 8 Inequality and Crime in India 140 PINTU KABIRAJ 9 Women’s Inheritance Rights in India: Can Legal Reform Precipitate Social Change? 158 SANCHARI ROY 10 Inequality of Opportunity in Learning Outcomes for Children in Rural India 167 RAMA PAL AND MALLIKA SINHA 11 Public Expenditure for Compensation and Equality of Opportunity: Evidence from Indian States 189 ANJAN RAY CHAUDHURY AND MADHABENDRA SINHA Index 208