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Challenges in designing national multidimensional poverty measures

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  • Santos, María Emma

Abstract

Countries are increasingly interested in having an official multidimensional poverty index (MPI). This is the expression of a growing consensus regarding the limitations of income poverty measures as standalone indicator. This paper analyses the challenges in designing such indices. Specifically, it addresses the selection of the unit of identification, the selection of dimensions and indicators, including the issue of missing values and the debate on whether to include an indicator of monetary deprivation or not, the weighting structure and the poverty cutoff. In general, for all the reviewed items, the bottom line is that there is no canonical procedure for making these choices. It is essential to critically assess the advantages and disadvantages of each option and the conceptual implications entailed, as well as to complete a careful empirical analysis, via robustness, sensitivity and bias checks, of the implications of the decisions taken.

Suggested Citation

  • Santos, María Emma, 2019. "Challenges in designing national multidimensional poverty measures," Estudios Estadísticos 44453, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    • Handle: RePEc:ecr:col027:44453
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    14. Maria Emma Santos & Pablo Villatoro, 2018. "A Multidimensional Poverty Index for Latin America," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(1), pages 52-82, March.
    15. Sabina Alkire, James E. Foster, Suman Seth, Maria Emma Santos, Jose M. Roche and Paola Ballon, 2015. "Multidimensional Poverty Measurement and Analysis: Chapter 9 - Distribution and Dynamics," OPHI Working Papers ophiwp090_ch9.pdf, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
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    19. Diego Battiston & Guillermo Cruces & Luis Lopez-Calva & Maria Lugo & Maria Santos, 2013. "Income and Beyond: Multidimensional Poverty in Six Latin American Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 112(2), pages 291-314, June.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Maria Emma Santos, 2022. "Pobreza Multidimensional post-pandemia en una ciudad intermedia: el caso de Bahía Blanca," Asociación Argentina de Economía Política: Working Papers 4598, Asociación Argentina de Economía Política.
    3. Gallardo, Mauricio, 2022. "Measuring vulnerability to multidimensional poverty with Bayesian network classifiers," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 492-512.
    4. Bray, Rachel & de Laat, Marianne & Godinot, Xavier & Ugarte, Alberto & Walker, Robert, 2020. "Realising poverty in all its dimensions: A six-country participatory study," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    5. Amrita Roy & Chandrima Chakraborti, 2023. "Disparity in income poverty and multidimensional poverty estimates: The Indian scenario with special reference to Salboni and Binpur‐I blocks," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(1), pages 98-123, March.
    6. Alemayehu Azeze Ambel & Harriet Kasidi Mugera & Robert E S Bain, 2020. "Accounting for drinking water quality in measuring multidimensional poverty in Ethiopia," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(12), pages 1-15, December.

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