1. The Concept of Poverty: Principles and Practice
Peter Lanjouw
DECRG

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. Deriving a Poverty Line
Absolute versus relative
Selecting an “objective” poverty line
Subjective poverty lines

6. Measuring Poverty Choosing Poverty Measures
Poverty Measures of Poverty Profile?
Cardinal versus ordinality
Robustness and Sensitivity Analysis