Toward better global poverty measures

Abstract

While much progress has been made over the last 25 years in measuring global poverty, there are a number of challenges ahead. The paper discusses three sets of problems: (i) how to allow for social effects on welfare, recognizing the identification issues involved; (ii) the need to monitor progress in raising the consumption floor above its biological level, in addition to counting the number of people living near the floor; and (iii) addressing the longstanding concerns about prevailing approaches to making inter-country comparisons of price levels facing poor people. Some suggestions are offered for operational solutions, building on past research. JEL Codes: I32, E31, O10

Poverty, competition, democracy, and ownership: A general equilibrium model with vertical preferences

“…It is "the typical level of living of the poorest stratum". Ravallion (2015) asserts that the level of the floor in an economy is an important information per se and that anti-poverty policies success must be assessed in part through the ability to raise the floor. In this paper, we use two indicators inspired by Ravallion: the Income Floor and the Poorest indicator.…”

Poverty Measurement: We Know Less than Policy Makers Realize

“…These refinements to the way in which progress in meeting the poverty target is measured attract considerable academic debate (Deaton ; Ravallion ). Much of the debate is about international comparisons, where there are difficult issues of how to consistently rank the monetary welfare of a person in, say, Papua New Guinea against someone in Vietnam.…”

A Behavior‐Based Approach to the Estimation of Poverty in India

“… The Engel methodology has been discussed in several papers (e.g., Deaton and Dupriez ; Beatty and Crossley ), and validations have been called for (e.g., Ravallion ). …”