The Concept of Poverty: Principles and Practice Peter Lanjouw DECRG
Why Measure Poverty? To Inform Decision Making To Encourage Public Attention and Debate Conclusion: Poverty Measurement is essential for sound policy making and can keep poverty in the public eye
What is Involved? Poverty Measurement is concerned with poverty comparisons Comparing the poverty of persons or groups of people Comparing the evolution of poverty over time or across countries These different purposes have different implications for how to measure poverty Conclusion: The purpose should drive the mechanics
The Mechanics Selecting an indicator of welfare Income Consumption Other indicators of human development Achieving comparability Price variation Equivalence scales Conclusion: A sound basis is needed
Deriving a Poverty Line Absolute versus relative Selecting an “objective” poverty line Subjective poverty lines
Measuring Poverty Choosing Poverty Measures Poverty Measures of Poverty Profile? Cardinal versus ordinality Robustness and Sensitivity Analysis