Income Distribution and Undernutrition

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Income Distribution and Undernutrition

• Text extracted from
• The World Food Problem
• Leathers Foster, 2004

ttp//www.amazon.com/World-Food-Problem-Toward-Und
ernutrition/dp/1588266389
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Poorest of the Poor

• Live in third world
• Mostly landless
• Work for others, menial jobs
• Poorly educated
• Illiterate
• Superstitious
• Squatters who live in huts
• Almost no food
• Fragmented household
• Debt to relatives or lenders

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Per capita incomes differ

• Democratic Republic Congo 80/yr
• Switzerland 38,330
• Average person in Switzerland makes 500X more
  than in Mozambique.
• If compute purchasing power parity, difference
  between richest and poorest countries is 80X

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Purchasing Power Parity
2003
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FilePPP2003.svg
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Global Incomes
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Distribution of World GNP (1989)
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Human Development Index

• Measures quality of life
• High HDI
• High income countries
• Low HDI
• Low income countries
• HDI not perfectly correlated with income

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Gini Coefficient

• Gini coefficient
• Based on area of crescent made by Lorenz curve
• measures inequity of wealth
• A/AB
• Gini index Gini coefficient x 100
• Lowest inequity is in Japan
• Gini coefficient .249
• Gini index 24.9
• Richest 20 controls 35 of income
• Highest inequity is in Brazil
• Gini index 60.7
• Richest 20 controls 64 of income

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Global Gini Coefficients
http//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thum
b/a/aa/Gini_Coefficient_World_Human_Development_Re
port_2007-2008.png/800px-Gini_Coefficient_World_Hu
man_Development_Report_2007-2008.png
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Kuznets Curve

• As a country develops, rich must get richer first
• Therefore inequity will increase initially
• Later, inequity will drop as prosperity increases

Data from 75 countries
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Wealthy out-compete poor for food

• Can outbid poor for food
• Also purchase more livestock
• Herd becomes more dependent on grain
• Price of grain is bid up
• Harder for the poor to buy grain

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Overall inequity declining slowly

• Global Gini coefficients
• .67 in 1980
• .65 in 1990
• .63 in 2000
• .62 in 2005

(Bob Sutcliff, 2007)
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Extreme Inequity Increasing
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Child Labor

• 250 million children work worldwide
• 22 of workforce in Asia
• 17 of workforce in Latin America
• 1/3 of children in sub-Saharan Africa
• Jobs
• Agriculture
• Textiles
• Maids and services
• Construction and manufacturing
• Prostitution
• Many sold into debt bondage
• To pay parents debt or as collateral
• Advance on wages

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U.S. Poor are Wealthy

• Poverty income
• 9,359/yr
• Person at poverty line in U.S.
• has higher income than 80 of people in the
  world
• 97 poor households in U.S. have color TV

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U.S. Middle Class Decline
http//i.qtau.com/shrinking-middle-class.png
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U.S. Inequity increasing

• Gini coefficients
• 1968 38.6
• 1970 39.4
• 1980 40.3
• 1990 42.2
• 2000 46.2
• 2007 47.0

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oads/us_income_inequal_5_15_2006.jpg
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Rich in U.S. getting richer
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Hunger in the U.S.A.

• 36.3 million people live in households that
  experience hunger
• or the risk of hunger
• Includes 13 million children
• More than one in ten households in the United
  States (11.2 percent).
• 1/5 of U.S. food ends up in the landfill
• Source Bread for the World Institute (2004)

http//www.endhunger.org/images/u_s_hunger.png
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