Poverty+and+famine

 Encyclopædia Britannica ||
 * =poverty =

The state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. Poverty is said to exist when people lack the means to satisfy their basic needs. In this context, the identification of poor people first requires a determination of what constitutes basic needs. These may be defined as narrowly as “those necessary for survival” or as broadly as “those reflecting the prevailing standard of living in the community.” The first criterion would cover only those people near the borderline of starvation or death from exposure; the second would extend to people whose nutrition, housing, and clothing, though adequate to preserve life, do not measure up to those of the population as a whole. The problem of definition is further compounded by the noneconomic connotations that the word poverty has acquired. Poverty has been associated, for example, with poor health, low levels of education or skills, an inability or an unwillingness to work, high rates of disruptive or disorderly behaviour, and improvidence. While these attributes have often been found to exist with poverty, their inclusion in a definition of poverty would tend to obscure the relation between them and the inability to provide for one's basic needs. Whatever definition one uses, authorities and laypersons alike commonly assume that the effects of poverty are harmful to both individuals and society. Although poverty is a phenomenon as old as human history, its significance has changed over time. Under traditional (i.e., nonindustrialized) modes of economic production, widespread poverty had been accepted as inevitable. The total output of goods and services, even if equally distributed, would still have been insufficient to give the entire population a comfortable standard of living by prevailing standards. With the economic productivity that resulted from industrialization, however, this ceased to be the case—especially in the world's most industrialized countries, where national outputs were sufficient to raise the entire population to a comfortable level if the necessary redistribution could be arranged without adversely affecting output. Several types of poverty may be distinguished depending on such factors as time or duration (long- or short-term or cyclical) and distribution (widespread, concentrated, individual).

Cyclical poverty
Cyclical poverty refers to poverty that may be widespread throughout a population, but the occurrence itself is of limited duration. In nonindustrial societies (present and past), this sort of inability to provide for one's basic needs rests mainly upon temporary food shortages caused by natural phenomena or poor agricultural planning. Prices would rise because of scarcities of food, which brought widespread, albeit temporary, misery. In industrialized societies the chief cyclical cause of poverty is fluctuations in the business cycle, with mass unemployment during periods of depression or serious recession. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, the industrialized nations of the world experienced business panics and recessions that temporarily enlarged the numbers of the poor. The United States' experience in the Great Depression of the 1930s, though unique in some of its features, exemplifies this kind of poverty. And until the Great Depression, poverty resulting from business fluctuations was accepted as an inevitable consequence of a natural process of market regulation. Relief was granted to the unemployed to tide them over until the business cycle again entered an upswing. The experiences of the Great Depression inspired a generation of economists such as John Maynard Keynes, who sought solutions to the problems caused by extreme swings in the business cycle. Since the Great Depression, governments in nearly all advanced industrial societies have adopted economic policies that attempt to limit the ill effects of economic fluctuation. In this sense, governments play an active role in poverty alleviation by increasing spending as a means of stimulating the economy. Part of this spending comes in the form of direct assistance to the unemployed, either through unemployment compensation, welfare, and other subsidies or by employment on public-works projects. Although business depressions affect all segments of society, the impact is most severe on people of the lowest socioeconomic strata because they have fewer marginal resources than those of a higher strata.

Collective poverty
In contrast to cyclical poverty, which is temporary, widespread or “collective” poverty involves a relatively permanent insufficiency of means to secure basic needs—a condition that may be so general as to describe the average level of life in a society or that may be concentrated in relatively large groups in an otherwise prosperous society. Both generalized and concentrated collective poverty may be transmitted from generation to generation, parents passing their poverty on to their children. Collective poverty is relatively general and lasting in much of Asia, the Middle East, most of Africa, and large parts of South America and Central America. Life for the bulk of the population in these societies is at a minimal level. Nutritional deficiencies cause disease seldom seen by doctors in the highly developed countries. Low life expectancy, high levels of infant mortality, and poor health characterize life in these societies. Collective poverty is usually related to economic underdevelopment. The total resources of many developing nations in Africa, Asia, and South and Central America would be insufficient to support the population adequately even if they were equally divided among all of the citizens. Proposed remedies are twofold: (1) expansion of the gross national product (GNP) through improved agriculture or industrialization, or both, and (2) population limitation. Thus far, both population control and induced economic development in many countries have proved difficult, controversial, and at times inconclusive or disappointing in their results. An increase of the GNP does not necessarily lead to an improved standard of living for the population at large, for a number of reasons. The most important reason is that, in many developing countries, the population grows even faster than the economy does, with no net reduction in poverty as a result. This increased population growth stems primarily from lowered infant mortality rates made possible by improved sanitary and disease-control measures. Unless such lowered rates eventually result in women bearing fewer children, the result is a sharp acceleration in population growth, which can reach rates of 3–4 percent annually in some cases. To reduce birth rates, some developing countries have undertaken nationally administered family-planning programs, with varying results. Many developing nations are also characterized by a long-standing system of unequal distribution of wealth—a system likely to continue despite marked increases in the GNP. Some authorities have observed the tendency for a large portion of any increase to be siphoned off by persons who are already wealthy, while others claim that increases in GNP will always trickle down to the part of the population living at the subsistence level.

Concentrated collective poverty
In many industrialized, relatively affluent countries, particular demographic groups are vulnerable to long-term poverty. In city ghettos, in regions bypassed or abandoned by industry, and in areas where agriculture or industry is inefficient and cannot compete profitably, there are found victims of concentrated collective poverty. These people, like those afflicted with generalized poverty, have higher mortality rates, poor health, low educational levels, and so forth when compared with the more affluent segments of society. Their chief economic traits are unemployment and underemployment, unskilled occupations, and job instability. Efforts at amelioration focus on ways to bring the deprived groups into the mainstream of economic life by attracting new industry, promoting small business, introducing improved agricultural methods, and raising the level of skills of the employable members of the society.

Case poverty
Similar to collective poverty in relative permanence but different from it in terms of distribution, case poverty refers to the inability of an individual or family to secure basic needs even in social surroundings of general prosperity. This inability is generally related to the lack of some basic attribute that would permit the individual to maintain himself or herself. Such persons may, for example, be blind, physically or emotionally disabled, or chronically ill. Physical and mental handicaps are usually regarded sympathetically, as being beyond the control of the people who suffer from them. Efforts to ameliorate poverty due to physical causes focus on education, sheltered employment, and, if needed, economic maintenance.

" **poverty .**" //Encyclopædia Britannica//. //Encyclopædia Britannica Online Library Edition//.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2011. Web. 12 Sept. 2011.

==== =<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">famine = <span class="artsubhead" style="color: #999999; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 10px;"> Encyclopædia Britannica || > > || || > <span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">severe and prolonged hunger in a substantial proportion of the population of a region or country, resulting in widespread and acute malnutrition and death by starvation and disease. Famines usually last for a limited time, ranging from a few months to a few years. They cannot continue indefinitely, if for no other reason than that the affected population would eventually be decimated. > > >

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif;">Conditions associated with famine
<span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">Famines, like wars and epidemics, have occurred from ancient times, achieving biblical proportions not only in biblical times but throughout history. Examples from the 20th century include the Chinese famine of 1959–61, which resulted in 15–30 million deaths, the Ethiopian famine of 1984–85, which caused approximately 1 million deaths but affected more than 8 million people, and the North Korean famine of roughly 1995–99, which killed an estimated 2.5 million people. > > > || || > ||  > || <span class="caption" style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; text-decoration: none;">Starving Irish people raid a government potato store in 1842. > <span class="caption" style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; text-decoration: none;">//The Print Collector/Heritage-Images// || > || <span class="caption" style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; text-decoration: none;">Population changes in Ireland from 1841 to 1851, including those resulting from the Irish Potato … > <span class="caption" style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; text-decoration: none;">//Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.// || > || || > <span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">Many famines are precipitated by natural causes, such as drought, flooding, unseasonable cold, typhoons, vermin depredations, insect infestations, and plant diseases such as the blight that caused the Irish Potato Famine (1845–49). Although natural factors played a role in most European famines of the Middle Ages, their chief causes were feudal social systems (structured upon lords and vassals) and population growth, which extended many common food shortages into malnutrition, widespread disease, and starvation. Medieval Britain was afflicted by numerous famines, and France suffered the effects of 75 or more in the same period. Nor was Russia spared; some 500,000 Russians died of starvation in 1600. > <span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">The most common human cause of famine is warfare. In addition to destroying crops and food supplies, warfare disrupts the distribution of food through the strategic use of siege and blockade tactics and through the incidental destruction of transportation routes and vehicles. The famines that plagued eastern Europe between 1500 and 1700, for example, were chiefly the result of human rather than natural causes, as the warring countries of the region interfered with and often prevented the production and distribution of basic foodstuffs. The deliberate destruction of crops and food supplies became a common tactic of war in the 19th century, employed by both attacking and defending armies. The “scorched-earth” policy adopted by the Russians in 1812 not only deprived Napoleon's armies of needed food but also starved the Russian people who depended on the land. > <span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">Famines generally strike in poor countries; they have been endemic in some sub-Saharan African countries and widespread in South Asia. But they are not totally unknown to prosperous industrialized countries. In 1944–45, for instance, a famine struck the Netherlands with ferocity. The result of a temporary food embargo by German occupation authorities as well as harsh winter weather that impeded food shipments, the//hongerwinter// (“hunger winter”) claimed between 20,000 and 30,000 lives there at the end of World War II. > <span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">Over the course of centuries, rulers and governments have managed, mismanaged, documented, and analyzed famines in numerous ways. An early concern with famines appears in an ancient Indian treatise on statecraft, the //Artha-shastra//, by the Hindu statesman and philosopher Kautilya. Written during approximately the 3rd century BCEand combining the modern and the quaint, the //Artha-shastra// classifies famines as “calamities due to acts of God.” (Other miseries and problems categorized in this way included fire, floods, and epidemics as well as “rats, wild animals, snakes, and evil spirits.”) It points out that all calamities “can be overcome by propitiating Gods and Brahmans” (the highest ranking caste in Hindu India)—a shrewd piece of advice, given that Kautilya himself was a Brahman. But the //Artha-shastra// also contains sophisticated prescriptions, stressing the king's responsibility to act and recommending that in the event of a famine he “distribute to the public, on concessional terms, seeds and food from the royal stores [and] undertake food-for-work programs such as building forts or irrigation works.” > > >
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif;">Historical responses to famine
<span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">The British government wrote the first modern codification of responses to famine during its occupation of India. The highly detailed Indian Famine Code of 1883 classified situations of food scarcity according to a scale of intensity, and it laid out a series of steps that governments were obligated to take in the event of a famine. The code continues to influence contemporary policies, such as food-for-work programs and what the code called “gratuitous relief” for those unable to work. > <span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">Despite the development of many detailed antifamine programs, famines have persisted. One reason for this is that until the 1980s the underlying causes of most famines were poorly understood. Despite some awareness to the contrary through the ages, there has been an overwhelming tendency to think that famines are primarily caused by a decline in food production. The result has been that famines that are not accompanied by such shortages are usually not recognized as famines until well after they have occurred. The Bengal famine of 1943, for example, was greatly worsened by the government's failure to declare a famine and thereby secure the official responses that would have been dictated by the Indian Famine Code. > > >

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif;">Entitlement failure
<span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">In the late 20th century the work of the Indian economist Amartya Sen led to a major reorientation in the study of famines. In works such as //Poverty and Famines// (1981), Sen challenged the prevailing “FAD hypothesis,” the assumption that total food-availability decline (FAD) is the central cause of all famines. Sen argued that the more proximate cause is so-called “entitlement failure,” which can occur even when there is no decline in aggregate food production. > <span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">According to Sen, in every society each person can be thought of as having an “entitlement” to all possible combinations of the goods and services to which he has access. An entitlement is a collection of alternative bundles of goods and services from which the person in question is free to choose. A resident of a homeless shelter, for example, may have an entitlement consisting of exactly one bundle: a tray of food and a ration of clothes. But a cotton farmer, who grows sack-loads of cotton each year, can keep the cotton or sell it and buy various combinations of other goods. All these options constitute his particular entitlement. > <span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">A person's entitlement can change for a number of reasons—for example, variations in the prices of goods and services, the implementation of new rationing rules, infestations of a farmer's crops by pests, or the disruption of food-distribution channels by war. These examples demonstrate how some segments of the population can perish because of hunger despite there being no overall shortfall in food production. If, because of an international glut, the price of cotton collapses in a given year, a village of cotton growers can suddenly find that their entitlements of food have failed, and they can face starvation. > <span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">A good example of an entitlement-based famine without a commensurate shortfall in food production is the Bengal famine of 1943, which happens to be one of the most intensively studied famines. Although food production did fall slightly in 1943 compared with previous years, it was still 13 percent higher than in 1941, when there was no famine. One phenomenon that did distinguish the year 1943 was inflation, a common consequence of war. Yet, amid rising commodity prices, the wages paid to agricultural labourers stagnated. Between 1939 and 1943, food grain prices rose by more than 300 percent, slightly outstripping the rate of inflation, whereas the wages of agricultural labourers rose by only 30 percent. Agricultural labourers, as a class, were badly hit, which resulted in many deaths. Yet, even as rural Bengal was being ravaged by famine, the West Bengal capital city, Calcutta (now Kolkata), was hardly affected. Research has shown that famine-related deaths in Calcutta occurred primarily among migrants who had come from the villages in search of food and alms. > > >

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif;">The role of policy
<span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">Many factors can contribute to entitlement failure. For example, slight imbalances in production can lead to large increases or declines in price. But government policies can also cause entitlement failures. It can be argued, for example, that the Bangladesh famine of 1974, which was precipitated by the effects of widespread flooding, would have been less severe if the state's food-rationing system had not been in place. The rationing system was flawed because it provided subsidized rationed food to only the country's urban population. In 1974, despite higher-than-usual rice production, there was a slight shortage of per capita food availability, because the United States temporarily halted routine food aid over its objections to Bangladesh's trade with Cuba. If the shortage had been shared out across the country, there would have been little hardship. But the rationing system kept the supplies of food in the urban centres, thereby affecting the entitlements of rural Bangladeshis and ultimately causing famine and some one million deaths. > <span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">During the Ethiopian famine of 1973, the country's overall food productivity did not decline—in other words, according to the FAD hypothesis, there should not have been a famine. Yet, in the province of Wollo and to a lesser extent in Tigray, residents suffered famine exacerbated by entitlement failures that were made worse by the poor system of transport between regions. > <span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">A less proximate cause of famines can be the nature of a country's political system. As Sen pointed out, democracy serves as a natural bulwark against famines. In a democratic system coupled with a free press, the occurrence of a famine will inevitably reduce the popularity of the government; thus, the fear of being voted out of power motivates democratic governments to take measures to prevent or at least mitigate famines. In the western Indian state of Maharashtra, for example, droughts in the early 1970s severely affected a large area with a population of about 20 million. The resulting food shortages would have caused a famine if the government had not intervened by delivering food (from buffer stocks) and initiating massive employment-relief programs. Although there was a small rise in mortality, there were no recorded “starvation deaths.” In contrast, it is arguable that the catastrophic kind of famine that occurred in China in 1959–61 could not have happened in a democratic country. Chinese censorship prevented the world (and the Chinese people themselves) from understanding the enormity of the famine until well after the tragedy had occurred. Even decades later, mortality statistics continued to be disputed. > > > || || > ||  > || <span class="caption" style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; text-decoration: none;">Children in Luanda collecting water for their families' use, 2006. Cholera epidemics occur … > <span class="caption" style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; text-decoration: none;">//AP// || > || || > <span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">It should be noted that statistics on famine mortality are always difficult to establish, because, contrary to a widely held view, in most famines only a small proportion of deaths are the direct result of starvation. The chief cause of death is usually disease, which can continue long after the famine has officially ended. In the Bengal famine, for example, deaths from starvation occurred between the critical months of March and November 1943, but the overall death rate did not peak until later—in the period from December 1943 through December 1944, when most deaths were caused by cholera, malaria, and smallpox. > > >
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif;">Prevention and control
<span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">In order to be effective, policies designed to prevent or control famines must be based on a sound understanding of the relationship between markets and food shortages. According to two traditional but opposing views, food markets exacerbate food shortages and therefore should be carefully controlled, or they naturally alleviate food shortages and therefore should be completely unhindered. Both views are flawed: both have caused governments to act in ways that made famines worse. In many cases, for example, the first reaction of governments has been to prevent the movement of food between regions, since such activity is frequently associated with speculation and profiteering. Yet this restriction on trade reduces the inflow of food into famine-affected regions, despite the fact that scarcity will have driven up food prices—a consequence that typically attracts more suppliers wishing to sell. The reduced flow of food caused by trade limitations may well contribute to more suffering and starvation. The aim should therefore be not to curb profits by restricting trade but to maximize the flow of food to the regions and population groups hardest hit by shortages. > <span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">Equally faulty, however, is the view that problems will be resolved if the market is left fully to its own devices. It is based on the assumption that those who need food badly will be prepared to pay higher prices; if there is no government intervention, therefore, food will reach those who need it most. This argument makes the fatal mistake of presuming that all people have the same income. In reality, when people panic about food shortages, the wealthier in society tend to hoard food for themselves, thereby driving up food prices to levels beyond what the poor are able to afford. > <span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">Contemporary research has shown that famines are best prevented and controlled when markets are allowed to function but when governments also intervene in appropriate ways. Private traders should be permitted to move food into affected regions; at the same time, governments should shore up the buying power of the poor through direct relief or employment-relief (food-for-work or cash-for-work) programs. > <span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">There is continuing debate about whether relief is better provided in the form of food or cash. The answer is not obvious. Some have argued that if equivalent amounts of food and cash are being compared, then from the point of view of survival it does not matter which is given. In most cases, however, the answer depends on how well the relief system works or on how broadly it covers the population it is supposed to help. A cash-based program makes sense only if steps are taken to ensure that all those affected by the food shortage obtain relief. This is especially important in view of the fact that the wide distribution of cash will be likely to cause food prices in the affected region to rise. In the most acute situations of famine, therefore, it is usually far more effective to give relief in the form of food. > > > > > Kaushik Basu >

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif;">Additional Reading
<span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">Historical perspectives on famine are presented in W.R. Aykroyd, //The Conquest of Famine//(1974); and William Chester Jordan, //The Great Famine: Northern Europe in the Early Fourteenth Century// (1996). > <span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">The thesis of entitlement failure is presented in Amartya Sen, “Famines as Failures of Exchange Entitlements,” //Economic and Political Weekly//, 11(31–33):1273–80 (August 1976), and his //Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation// (1981, reissued 1999). Additional economic analyses are offered in Kaushik Basu, “Relief Program: When May It Be Better to Give Food Instead of Cash,” //World Development//, 24(1):91–96 (1996); Martin Ravallion, “Famines and Economics,” //Journal of Economic Literature//, 35(3):1205–42 (September 1997); and Meredith Woo-Cumings, “The Political Ecology of Famine: The North Korean Catastrophe and Its Lessons” (2002), no. 31 in the //Asian Development Bank Institute Research Paper Series//. Three essays in Jean Drèze, Amartya Sen, and Athar Hussain (eds.),//The Political Economy of Hunger: Selected Essays// (1995), are particularly useful: N. Ram, “An Independent Press and Anti-Hunger Strategies,” chapter 2, pp. 178–223 (1995); Jean Drèze, “Famine Prevention in India,” chapter 4, pp. 69–177 (1995); and S.R. Osmani, “The Food Problem of Bangladesh,” chapter 6, pp. 332–371 (1995). > <span class="artcopy" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,Arial,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none;">A number of regional studies have contributed to a broader understanding of famine as experienced in various parts of the world. These include B.M. Bhatia, //Famines in India: A Study in Some Aspects of the Economic History of India with Special Reference to Food Problem, 1860–1990//, 3rd rev. ed. (1991); and John C. Caldwell and Pat Caldwell, “Famine in Africa: A Global Perspective,” in Etienne van de Walle, Gilles Pison, and Mpembele Sala-Diakanda, //Mortality and Society in Sub-Saharan Africa// (1992), pp. 367–390. > > > Kaushik Basu

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