Inequality as a Determinant of Malnutrition and Unemployment: Policy

This paper explores the policy implications that are obtained once it is recognized that at low nutrition intakes a person's "productivity" is an increasing function of intake. In the context of a fully general equilibrium model it is shown that if aggregate assets in an economy are neither large nor small, certain patterns of Lorenz improving asset redistributions (or nutrition transfers) increase aggregate output and reduce the volume of involuntary unemployment and the incidence of undernourishment. Copyright 1987 by Royal Economic Society.