Public Policy

Persistent hunger and pervasive malnutrition are serious problems in the developing world. Recent literature suggests that well-designed public policies towards provisioning of social protection/security and strengthening of support measures to smallholder agriculture appear to be effective in reducing hunger and malnutrition. An investigation of the role of public provisioning on social protection in combating hunger using the recent evidence for 64 countries in the global South makes a strong case for a substantial push in public provisioning in favour of social protection, which, along with other policy measures, could play a vital role in strengthening national food security. Further, low levels of per capita income must not become an excuse for addressing the most basic human needs, as adequate fiscal space can be created even at low levels of income.

Most earlier studies exploring the cross-ountry variation in the degree of income inequality (measured by Gini ratio) are valuable but for the inappropriate data on inequality comprising estimates of Gini from incomparable data sets such as national and sub-ational surveys, per person and per household income distributions, and income and expenditure distributions. This paper explores the cross-ountry variation in income inequality based on relatively more comparable data and suggests that public policy aimed at reducing inequality and freedom may be the key variables that explain the variation in the Gini across countries. Prospects for launching national policy initiatives to reduce inequalities are rather dim since globalisation could be conveniently used to rationalise a relatively high level of income inequality.