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The Social Welfare Implications, Decomposability, and Geometry of the Sen Family of Poverty Indices

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Author Info
Kuan Xu
Lars Osberg () (Department of Economics, Dalhousie University)

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Abstract

This paper proposes a unified framework for the Sen indices of poverty intensity, which shows an explicit connection between the indices and the common underlying social evaluation function. This paper also identifies the common multiplicative decomposition of the indices that allows simple and similar geometric interpretations, easy numerical computation, and common subgroup decompositions. These results are useful to policy analysis.

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File URL: http://www.economics.dal.ca/RePEc/dal/wparch/sendeco.pdf
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Paper provided by Dalhousie, Department of Economics in its series Department of Economics at Dalhousie University working papers archive with number sendeco.

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Length: 27 pages
Date of creation: 27 Oct 2000
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Handle: RePEc:dal:wparch:sendeco

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Related research
Keywords: Poverty Intensity; Poverty Rate; Poverty Gap; Sugroup Decomposition; Equally-Distributed-Equivalent-Income; Social Evaluation Function; Gini Index;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

References listed on IDEAS
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.:

  1. Myles, John & Picot, Garnett, 2000. "Poverty Indices and Policy Analysis," Review of Income and Wealth, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(2), pages 161-79, June.
  2. Bourguignon, F. & Fields, G., 1995. "Discontinuous Losses from Poverty, Generalized P& Measures and Optimal Transfers to the Poor," DELTA Working Papers 95-06, DELTA (Ecole normale supérieure).
  3. Lars Osberg & Kuan Xu, 1999. "Poverty Intensity: How Well Do Canadian Provinces Compare?," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 25(2), pages 179-195, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Satya R. Chakravarty, 1997. "On Shorrocks' Reinvestigation of the Sen Poverty Index," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(5), pages 1241-1242, September.
  5. Takayama, Noriyuki, 1979. "Poverty, Income Inequality, and Their Measures: Professor Sen's Axiomatic Approach Reconsidered," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(3), pages 747-59, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Rongve, Ian, 1997. "Statistical Inference for Poverty Indices with Fixed Poverty Lines," Applied Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 387-92, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Satya Ranjan Chakravarty, 1983. "Ethically Flexible Measures of Poverty," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 16(1), pages 74-85, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Birdsall, Nancy & Londono, Juan Luis, 1997. "Asset Inequality Matters: An Assessment of the World Bank's Approach to Poverty Reduction," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 32-37, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Donaldson, David & Weymark, John A, 1986. "Properties of Fixed-Population Poverty Indices," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 27(3), pages 667-88, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Clark, Stephen & Hemming, Richard & Ulph, David, 1981. "On Indices for the Measurement of Poverty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 91(362), pages 515-26, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Osberg, L & Xu, K, 1997. "International Comparisons of Poverty Intensity : Index Decomposition and Bootstrap Inference," Department of Economics at Dalhousie University working papers archive 97-03, Dalhousie, Department of Economics.
  12. Jenkins, Stephen P & Lambert, Peter J, 1997. "Three 'I's of Poverty Curves, with an Analysis of UK Poverty Trends," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 49(3), pages 317-27, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Fei, John C H & Rainis, Gustav & Kuo, Shirley W Y, 1978. "Growth and the Family Distribution of Income by Factor Components," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 92(1), pages 17-53, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Shorrocks, Anthony F, 1995. "Revisiting the Sen Poverty Index," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(5), pages 1225-30, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Quiggin, John, 1982. "A theory of anticipated utility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 323-343, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Thon, Dominique, 1979. "On Measuring Poverty," Review of Income and Wealth, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 25(4), pages 429-39, December.
  17. Segal, Uzi & Spivak, Avia, 1990. "First order versus second order risk aversion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 111-125, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  18. Charles Blackorby & David Donaldson & Maria Auersperg, 1981. "A New Procedure for the Measurement of Inequality within and among Population Subgroups," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 14(4), pages 665-85, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Karni, E. & Safra, Z., 1988. "Rank-Dependent Probabilities," Papers 11-88, Tel Aviv.
    Other versions:
  20. Blackorby, Charles & Donaldson, David, 1978. "Measures of relative equality and their meaning in terms of social welfare," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 59-80, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Blakorby, Charles & Donaldson, David, 1980. "Ethical Indices for the Measurement of Poverty," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 1053-60, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  22. Lars Osberg, 2000. "Poverty in Canada and the United States: measurement, trends, and implications," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 33(4), pages 847-877, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  23. Sen, Amartya K, 1976. "Poverty: An Ordinal Approach to Measurement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(2), pages 219-31, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  24. Foster, James & Greer, Joel & Thorbecke, Erik, 1984. "A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 761-66, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  25. Bishop, John A & Formby, John P & Zheng, Buhong, 1997. "Statistical Inference and the Sen Index of Poverty," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 38(2), pages 381-87, May.
Full references

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.)

  1. Stephen P. Jenkins & Philippe VanKerm, 2003. "Trends in Income Inequality, Pro-Poor Income Growth and Income Mobility," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 377, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Christophe Muller, 2004. "Poverty And Inequality Under Income And Price Dispersions," Working Papers. Serie AD 2004-35, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. repec:ese:iserwp: is not listed on IDEAS
  4. Lars Osberg, 2001. "Poverty Among Senior Citizens: A Canadian Success Story," The State of Economics in Canada: Festschrift in Honour of David Slater, in: Patrick Grady & Andrew Sharpe (ed.), The State of Economics in Canada: Festschrift in Honour of David Slater, pages 151-181 Centre for the Study of Living Standards. [Downloadable!]
  5. Ian Irvine & Kuan Xu, 2002. "Crime, Punishment and Poverty in the United States," Department of Economics at Dalhousie University working papers archive uspov, Dalhousie, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  6. Stephen P. Jenkins & John Micklewright, 2007. "New Directions in the Analysis of Inequality and Poverty," Working Papers 71, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. Stéphane Mussard, 2005. "On Decomposition of the Gini Index of Equality," Cahiers de recherche 05-09, Departement d'Economique de la Faculte d'administration à l'Universite de Sherbrooke. [Downloadable!]
  8. Kuan Xu, 2003. "How Has the Literature on Gini's Index Evolved in the Past 80 Years?," Department of Economics at Dalhousie University working papers archive howgini, Dalhousie, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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