Description
THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL BASIS FOR STATE-RESTRUCTURING IN NEPAL
Magnus Hatlebakk and Charlotte Ringdal
2013, pp. xii+92
ISBN: 978 9937 597 04 3
US$ 40
Nepal is in the process of forming a federal state, where the borders of the provinces is one essential, but disputed, issue. The book discusses underlying economic and social conditions that should be taken into account when the provinces are formed. It is described how the average province poverty levels, and related economic and social indicators, will depend on the federal map. The general finding is straight forward, if there is variation in poverty between districts in a specific area, then a large province that includes both poor and rich districts will have the average poverty level of those districts. As a result models with a large number of provinces will tend to imply a more unequal distribution of poverty between provinces than models with few provinces. In particular one may end up with a very poor Karnali province if the western hills becomes one separate province.
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Magnus Hatlebakk is a senior research economist at Chr. Michelsen Institute, an applied development studies institute in Norway. He has done research on rural credit and labor markets in Nepal since 1997 that is published in international journals. He has also written on the Maoist and Madhesi uprisings, as well as on the economic development of Nepal. His main empirical focus has been on the eastern terai, in particular on terai Dalits, but he has also done fieldwork among the ex-Kamaiyas in the western terai.
Charlotte Ringdal is a PhD student of Economics at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (NHH). She wrote her master thesis at CMI on child labor in the Kathmandu valley, and is now continuing her research at NHH. She is also a child-rights activist.
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