Income Distribution Commons^™

Non-Food Expenditures And Consumption Inequality In India, Amit Basole, Deepankar Basu

Deepankar Basu

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate about economic inequality in India during the post-reform period. We analyze consumption inequality through the hitherto neglected lens of nonfood expenditure. Using household level consumption expenditure data from the quinquennial “thick” rounds of the NSS, we show that inequality within food and non-food groups has declined, even as overall expenditure inequality has increased over time. We suggest that the rise in overall expenditure inequality is due to the increased weight in the household budget of non-food spending, which tends to be more unequal than food spending. We also show that inequality is very …