>Brad DeLong wrote:
>
>>Rates of growth of GDP per capita, India:
>>
>>1950-1980 1.1% per year
>>1980-1990 3.3% per year
>>1990-2000 4.2% per year
>>
>>At the pace of the last decade, India's real productivity is
>>doubling every seventeen years (compared to a doubling time of 65
>>years before 1980).
>
>Any evidence on how this growth has been distributed? Are the bottom
>20-40% any better off, or is it mainly captured by a thin urban
>middle class and the IT sector?
>
>Doug
Average life expectancy in India is 63 years, 44% of Indians over 15
are illiterate, 53% of Indians under 5 are malnourished. India's
poverty rate appears to have held constant over the decade of the
1990s. But I don't see how anything is going to push India's poverty
rate down until education improves.
So the answer to your question is that the bottom 20-40% aren't
better off not (much, if any). On the other hand, India's middle
class--the 50th to the 90th percentile--are still very poor by U.S.
standards, and their incomes have grown remarkably.
Brad DeLong
