Publications
- Limited Attention and Income Distribution
- Download: PDF 117.29 KB
- by Mullainathan, Sendhil; Banerjee, Abhijit
- Economists have long been interested in the idea that there is a direct circular relation
between poverty and low productivity, and not just one that is mediated by market failures,
usually in asset markets. The nutrition-based e¢ ciency wage model (Partha Dasgupta and
Debraj Ray, 1987) is the canonical example of models where this happens: However it
has been variously suggested (see for example T. N. Srinivasan, 1994) that the link from
nutrition to productivity and especially the link from productivity to nutrition is too weak
to be any more than a small part of the story. Partha Dasgupta himself acknowledges this
when he writes "nutrition-productivity construct provides a metaphor... for an economic
environment harboring poverty traps."
- Publication Type: Conference Paper
- Published Date: January 2008
- Field of Interest: International Economics
- Abhijit Banerjee and Sendhil Mullainathan. "Limited Attention and Income Distribution." January 2008.
- Presented at the American Economic Association, January 4, 2008.
