Poverty and Famines

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Poverty and Famines

• Social World I

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Some Web Sites

• USDA Food and Nutrition Service
  www.usda.gov/fcs/
• HungerWeb www.brown.edu/Departments/World_Hunger
  _Program
• Consultative Group on International Agricultural
  Research www.cgiar.org/

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Whos Amartya Sen?

• Economist, Philosopher, Scholar
• Origin career
• Nobel Prize, Economics

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Why Read This Book?

• Still useful?
• Research as process new findings, conclusions,
  techniques modified
• Recent events, and confirmation of analysis

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Further Poverty, Famine as

• A concrete way to begin to talk about the social
  world
• Illustrates
• issues vocabulary body of knowledge
• way(s) of thinking

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Specifically Approach Involves

• Definition
• Description
• Measurement
• Analysis
• Public policy prescription

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Some Data

• Numbers
• Location Hunger belt?
• Who are the hungry?

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Hunger in the U. S.

• Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 1995
• About 4 of households experienced reduced food
  intake and hunger as result of financial
  constraints
• About 0.8 of households experienced severe hunger

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Famine vs. Hunger

• Distinction
• Hunger sustained nutritional deprivation
• Famine acute deprivation, sharp increase in
  mortality
• Famine
• As a social problem
• Some history

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• Famine deaths hunger? Or disease?
• Famine and children
• Missing women issue
• Where?
• How many?
• How do we know? Compare Female-to-Male Ratios
  across countries

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Famine and the Food Supply Malthus vs. Sen

• Population vs. food supply how helpful is this
  comparison?
• Malthus, and Essay on Population the race
• Sen, and famine, starvation as involving the
  relationship of people to food the entitlement
  approach

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Thinking About Famine

• Malthus difficulties?
• Food increasing faster than population no
  famine?
• Population increasing faster than food famine?

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Sen, and the Entitlement Approach

• Famine as a collapse of claims to food
• Key how do we get claims to food?
• Production
• Trade
• Ones own labor
• Inheritance or transfer

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Exchange Entitlement

• Definition The set of all bundles of
  commodities we can acquire for what we own (see
  p. 3)
• What affects exchange entitlement that is, what
  affects our ability to exert command over food?
• Can we find employment?

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• Can we sell assets?
• What can we produce, sell?
• What are our claims to social security?
• What are our tax liabilities?
• How does the price of what we have to sell
  compare with the price of what we buy (the price
  of food)?

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Examples (from Sen)

• Peasant vs. landless laborer Who owns the
  product? What happens when typhoon destroys half
  the crop?
• boom famine
• Increasing price of food
• China and decreased starvation, though not large
  food production increases

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Conclude Useful to Focus On

• Distribution issues? Clarify
• Physical distribution? Possibly
• Income distribution? Yes this distributes
  claims to food
• How food supply works through entitlement
  relationships
• How claims to food are established

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• Paraphrasing from page 8 not focus so much on
  what is as on who can command what . . .

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Is Food Supply Irrelevant?

• More helpful to trace effects of changes in food
  supply through changes in entitlements
• Why? May influence
• understanding of why we see famine
• policy response
• Example typhoon destroys half of rice crop
  effects?

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• Point impact of natural disaster depends on how
  society is organized, especially to care for its
  economically vulnerable groups

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Poverty

• How does Sen proceed?
• Definition
• Description
• Measurement, (aggregation)
• Analysis (underlying analytical concepts)
• Public policy

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Definition

• Whats poverty, exactly?
• Why does it matter? Suggests ways to look for
• Causes
• Approaches to relief of the poor

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Approaches to Definition

• Absolute deprivation minimum subsistence
  definition
• A biological approach
• Survival
• Ability to work effectively
• Problems translating nutritional requirements
  into food requirements actually drawing the
  nutritional line

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• Relative deprivation inequality definition
• Rich vs. poor
• Problems
• Poverty never goes away
• Income transferred from top to middle
  inequality reduced, but not poverty
• Decrease in overall income no change in
  inequality, poverty increases

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Aggregation

• We want an indicator of poverty
• Problem how to do this, exactly?

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Identifying the Poor

• Direct method (a consumption-based definition)
• Poor if consumption bundle leaves some basic
  needs unfulfilled
• Problem Whats the minimum acceptable bundle,
  in terms of specific goods?

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• Income method
• Calculate minimum income necessary to meet basic
  needs then identify those below that line
• Catches ability to meet minimum needs
• Permits us to measure the shortfall from the
  poverty line

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Unit of Analysis

• Individual?
• Family? This is most typical

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Common Measures

• Head Count measure
• Definition proportion of the population defined
  as poor
• U. S., and Mollie Orshansky
• Problem Not consider income shortfall

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• Income Gap Ratio
• Definition the percentage shortfall of average
  income of the poor from the poverty line
• Problem not catch income distribution below
  poverty line
• Example income increases for some poor,
  decreases for others just enough to keep IGR
  constant H constant, IGR constant, poverty up

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Overall Difficulty?

• There are multiple dimensions to poverty
• Hard to catch them all in a single measure
• Sens work illustrates an important part of
  thinking about the social world

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From the General (Poverty) to the Specific
(Famine)

• Issues requiring distinction regarding food
  consumption
• Low level
• Decreasing trend
• sudden collapse

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• Importance of distinguishing trends, movements
  around trends examples
• Water levels, storm vs. calm
• Gross Domestic Product
• Regarding food may see
• Rising trend, production
• Increasing size of fluctuations around trend

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• Seeming paradox periodic famine accompanying
  decreasing starvation
• Point Does famine affect all groups in society
  equally?

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How to Command Food

• Legal means
• Own production
• Trade opportunities
• Social security mechanisms

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• Command over goods depends on societys
  characteristics
• Legal
• Political
• Economic
• Social
• And on ones place in society

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Summary

• How useful is it to compare total food to total
  population in analyzing famine?
• How useful is the term the poor as a category
  of analysis?

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• Do market forces have a place in famine relief?
• Role of increasing food prices
• Where does purchasing power come from?

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Hunger Policy

• Grounding protecting entitlements to food
• Goal secure
• Lives
• Livelihoods

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• Aid vs. development a false choice?
• Aid getting food to the starving
• Direct food aid
• Employment subsidies cash transfers
• Development
• Education capital accumulation growth
• Social security system and examples