Poverty in Indian cities during the reforms era

Abstract

This paper seeks to understand temporal changes in poverty and well-being in Indian cities during the era of economic reforms. The evidence on improvements in well being is mixed. During this period, there was an increase in the number of urban poor. Using two nationally representative samples, we compare the joint distribution of monthly per capita expenditure (a private good) and access to drainage (a public good) in slums and non-slum areas of Indian cities to understand changes in well being. A comparison at two points in time, 1993 and 2002, suggests that the share of slum dwellers in urban poor has declined. However, we do not find evidence for improvement in the well-being of slum dwellers over time. We do find that non-slum urban dwellers are better off in 2002 compared to 1993