[lbo-talk] Alex Cockburn on India: wrong? (was, U.N. seeks aid...)

Cseniornyc at aol.com Cseniornyc at aol.com
Fri Aug 12 03:59:13 PDT 2005


Ulhas writes :"Per capita income in India now is $3000 on PPP basis, not $300. Fairy tales about $1 per day should be buried." Comment : not so fast Mr Ulhas. The use Of PPP figures by he WB has been severely questioned in an internationally acclaimed research paper ,by Indian economist Sanjay Reddy and by Thomas Pogge of Barnard College titled "How Not To

Count The Poor" (2002), forcefully argue that the WB's PPP's estimates are "neither meaningful or reliable." The emphasis is on the WB's research team "employing a misleading and inaccurate measure of purchasing power equivalence that creates serious and irreparable difficulties for international comparisons of income poverty" A very similar analysis can be also found in Branko Milanovic's tour de force "Worlds Apart: Measuring International and Global Inequality" (Princeton),which was written while Branko was a WB staff officer in charge of gathering and analyzing data. So unless Ulhas can present quantitative and methodological refutation to these serious studies, the fairy tales charge should be on him.and the other apologists of neo-lib globalization. Cristobal Senior -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20050812/92f920f4/attachment.htm>



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