Who is not Poor? Proposing a Higher International Standard for Poverty

This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data

Who is not Poor? Proposing a Higher International Standard for Poverty

Author Info

Lant Pritchett ()

Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

Lant Pritchett

Abstract

Poverty reduction is now, and quite properly should remain, the primary objective of the World Bank. But, when the World Bank dreams of a world free of poverty—what should it be dreaming? I argue in this essay that the dream should be a bold one, that treats citizens of all nations equally in defining poverty, and that sets a high standard for what eliminating poverty will mean for human well-being. I propose a new standard for global income poverty for the World Bank’s use. This poverty line is the weighted average of the poverty lines declared by its shareholders, where the declared poverty line is no lower than the country uses for its own citizens. I show this will imply a poverty line of around U.S.$15 a day in current purchasing power adjusted currency units—about ten times higher than the existing standard.

Download Info
To download:

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

Publisher Info
Paper provided by Center for Global Development in its series Working Papers with number 33.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length: 55 pages
Date of creation: Nov 2003
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:cgd:wpaper:33

Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://www.cgdev.org

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (David Roodman).

Find related papers by JEL classification:
I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - General Welfare
F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
F33 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Monetary Arrangements and Institutions
O15 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
O19 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

ALi Abdel Gadir Ali, . "Poverty in the Arab Region: A Selective Review," API-Working Paper Series 0402, Arab Planning Institute - Kuwait, Information Center. [Downloadable!]

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Did you know? It is the publishers that input data about their publications, as there is no staff at RePEc.

This page was last updated on 2009-12-4.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.