In this context, poverty is not understood as a mere lack of income. Rather, a much broader definition like demanded by Amartya Sen and others is used, which takes account of non-material aspects of poverty as well (e.g. education, health and gender equity. Based on this multidimensional concept of poverty, win-win strategies shall be identified, which could create so called virtuous circles where enhancements in human capital result in higher growth rates which in turn strengthen the demand for human capital.

The project focuses on the cases of India and Brazil because these are large and fairly decentralised countries with considerable differences between federal states. These inter-state variations are evident not only with regards to outcome variables (poverty and growth rates) but also with respect to independent variables (politics and policies). In addition, extensive household surveys have been conducted in both countries which allow for an econometric examination of the research question on a sub-national level. Besides such quantitative analysis, qualitative empirical research will be conducted in both countries with a focus on one or two federal states and one or two interesting policy fields.

This project is component of the overall project "Anchor countries in regional and global politics: implications for German and European development co-operation" financed by the BMZ