Economic Inequality and Development of North-East India

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

The studies of income distribution and economic inequality are of crucial importance in developing economies like India. The issue of economic inequality assumes more relevancy and needs to be strategically dealt with, especially in the context of expanding and developing nature of economy. However, in spite of its importance at the global as well as intra-country levels, the area remained almost unexplored by the scholars across this region of the country. The present study is a pioneering step to throw some light on its importance and relevance to re-slide the economic pie more evenly in favour of the economically weak sections of the people.

The present book analyses the causes and effects of inequality at the macro and micro level. The book examines the relationship between economic growth and inequality in the light of inverted U-hypothesis. This study also proposes a new inequality measure known as 'Human face growth index' for measuring and comparing an increase in per capita income of an economy.

JV. Nunchunga (b. 1975) completed his Matriculation from Govt. High School, Thingsai in 1993, Pre-University (Science) and B.Sc (Major) from Pachhunga University College, Aizawl in 1995 and 1998 respectively. He had obtained his M.A. (Economics) from North Eastern Hill University in 2000. He was awarded Ph. D in Economics by the Mizoram University in 2009. Currently, he is the Associate Professor of Economics in Govt. J. Thankima College, Aizawl, Mizoram.

His area of interest includes econometrics, quantitative technique, demography, economic inequality etc. He has published a good number of papers in the national and international journals of repute in addition to three books.

The study of income distribution and severity of economic inequality have wide importance in a developing economy like India. The subject is of crucial economic issue in global level in general and within a country in particular. This is evident in the shift of focus from theoretical studies to the empirical study on distributive impact of development on various segments of society. Despite its importance, it is remained untouched among the scholars across this region, and this is an important step to throw some light on its importance and relevance to reslide the economic pie more evenly in favour of the economically weak sections of the people.

This book is the revised form of my thesis 'A mathematical study on income distribution and estimation of inequality', I have submitted to Mizoram University, and which earned me the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Economics.

The book consists of 8 chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the concept of income distribution and inequality along with the methodology of the study and abstracts of Mizoram. Chapter 2 reviewed literatures on the topics, and Chapter 3 presented the causes and effects of inequality at the macro-level. In Chapter 4, we find the cross country analysis on income distribution and inequality, followed by Indian scenario in Chapter 5. Chapter 6 analysed the relationship between economic growth and inequality in the light of inverted U- hypothesis propounded by Simon Kuznets. This study confirmed at the macro-level that the pattern of income distribution vis-a-vis economic development follows the inverted U-hypothesis.

Chapter 7 is devoted to analyse the income distribution and inequality for the state of Mizoram. Various mathematical models are fitted for the state and it was found thatwhen the mean income of the villages/localities is taken as random variables, there are three distributions that fit well Mizoram datawhereas there are only 2 distributions that fit the data if family monthly income is taken as random variable.

The last chapter discussed the findings and suggestion of the study. The study revealed that inequality measured by Gini Coefficient in Mizoram is less than India for the corresponding year. Apart from this, the chapter proposed the new measure known as Human face growth index. The new measure will be most suitable to the measurement of rise in per capita income.

I hope that this book will be helpful to policy makers, researchers, academicians and students and any suggestions for improvement will be highly appreciated.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages