The Economic and Social Basis for State Restructuring in Nepal

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 depends on the federal map. The general findings is straight forward, if there i variation in poverty between districts in a specific area, then a large province that includes both poor an rich district will have the average poverty level of those districts. As a result models with a large number of provinces than models with few provinces. In particular one may en up with a very poor Karnali province if the western hills becomes one separate province.