INTER-REGIONAL POVERTY COMPARISONS: CASE OF WEST BENGAL

This paper aims to explore into the causes of the differential levels of economic well being in the two parts of West Bengal, an eastern state of India in terms of incidences of poverty and various socio economic explanatory variables. Using a regression based technique, the incidences of poverty are found separately for these two parts, i.e., North Bengal and South Bengal. The disparity in poverty estimates (in particular, the Head Count Ratio (HCR) between rural North and South Bengal is studied. The difference between the poverty estimates is then decomposed into a characteristics effect, showing the effect of the regional characteristics and a coefficients effect, showing the effects of the differential impact of the characteristics over the regions using the familiar Oaxaca decomposition method and the results are interpreted in terms of policy prescriptions