Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Multidimensional Poverty Measures from an Information Theory Perspective

Contents:

Author Info

  • Maria Ana Lugo

    () (University of Oxford)

  • Esfandiar Maasoumi

    (Southern Methodist University)

Abstract

This paper proposes to use an information theory approach to the design of multidimensional poverty indices. Traditional monetary approaches to poverty rely on the strong assumption that all relevant attributes of well-being are perfectly substitutable. Based on the idea of the essentiality of some attributes, scholars have recently suggested multidimensional poverty indices where the existence of a trade-off between attributes is relevant only for individuals who are below a poverty threshold in all of them (Bourguignon and Chakravarty 2003, Tsui 2002). The present paper proposes a method which encompasses both approaches and, moreover, it opens the door to an intermediate position which allows, to a certain extent, for substitution of attributes even in the case in which one or more (but not all) dimensions are above the set threshold. An application using individual well-being data from Indonesian households in 2000 is presented in order to compare the results under the different approaches.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. 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.
File URL: http://www.ecineq.org/milano/WP/ECINEQ2008-85.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality in its series Working Papers with number 85.

as in new window
Length: 38 pages
Date of creation: 2008
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2008-85

Contact details of provider:
Email:
Web page: http://www.ecineq.org
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords: Multidimensional Poverty; Information Theory;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

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.:
as in new window
  1. Decancq, Koen & Decoster, André & Schokkaert, Erik, 2009. "The evolution of world inequality in well-being," Open Access publications from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven urn:hdl:123456789/196759, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
  2. Kai-yuen Tsui, 2002. "Multidimensional poverty indices," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 69-93.
  3. Cowell, Frank A. & Kuga, Kiyoshi, 1981. "Additivity and the entropy concept: An axiomatic approach to inequality measurement," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 131-143, August.
  4. Shorrocks, A F, 1980. "The Class of Additively Decomposable Inequality Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(3), pages 613-25, April.
  5. François Bourguignon & Satya Chakravarty, 2003. "The Measurement of Multidimensional Poverty," Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 25-49, April.
  6. Sudhir Anand & Amartya Sen, 2000. "The Income Component of the Human Development Index," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 1(1), pages 83-106.
  7. Jean-Yves Duclos & David Sahn & Stephen D. Younger, 2005. "Robust Multidimensional Spatial Poverty Comparisons in Ghana, Madagascar, and Uganda," Cahiers de recherche 0528, CIRPEE.
  8. Sudhir Anand and Amartya Sen, 2000. "The Income Component of Human Development Index," Human Development Occasional Papers (1992-2007) HDOCPA-2000-01, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
  9. Joseph Deutsch & Jacques Silber, 2005. "Measuring Multidimensional Poverty: An Empirical Comparison Of Various Approaches," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 51(1), pages 145-174, 03.
  10. Duclos, Jean-Yves & Sahn, David & Younger, Stephen D., 2001. "Robust Multidimensional Poverty Comparisons," Cahiers de recherche 0115, Université Laval - Département d'économique.
  11. Jean-Yves Duclos & David Sahn & Stephen D. Younger, 2006. "Robust Multidimensional Poverty Comparisons with Discrete Indicators of Well-being," Cahiers de recherche 0628, CIRPEE.
  12. Dagum, Camilo, 1997. "A New Approach to the Decomposition of the Gini Income Inequality Ratio," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 515-31.
  13. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
  14. Conchita D'Ambrosio & Joseph Deutsch & Jacques Silber, 2009. "Multidimensional approaches to poverty measurement: an empirical analysis of poverty in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, based on the European panel," Applied Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 43(8), pages 951-961.
  15. Maasoumi, Esfandiar, 1986. "The Measurement and Decomposition of Multi-dimensional Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(4), pages 991-97, July.
  16. A. Atkinson, 2003. "Multidimensional Deprivation: Contrasting Social Welfare and Counting Approaches," Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 51-65, April.
  17. Bourguignon, F. & Chakravarty, S.R., 1998. "A Family of Multidimensional Poverty Measures," DELTA Working Papers 98-03, DELTA (Ecole normale supérieure).
  18. Pyatt, Graham, 1976. "On the Interpretation and Disaggregation of Gini Coefficients," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 86(342), pages 243-55, June.
  19. Patricia Justino & Julie Litchfield & Yoko Niimi, 2004. "Multidimensional Inequality: An Empirial Application to Brazil," PRUS Working Papers 24, Poverty Research Unit at Sussex, University of Sussex.
  20. Tsui Kai-Yuen, 1995. "Multidimensional Generalizations of the Relative and Absolute Inequality Indices: The Atkinson-Kolm-Sen Approach," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 251-265, October.
  21. James E. Foster & Artyom A. Shneyerov, 1999. "A general class of additively decomposable inequality measures," Economic Theory, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 89-111.
  22. Sen, Amartya K, 1976. "Poverty: An Ordinal Approach to Measurement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(2), pages 219-31, March.
  23. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:4:y:2003:i:7:p:1-6 is not listed on IDEAS
  24. Hirschberg, Joseph G. & Maasoumi, Esfandiar & Slottje, Daniel J., 1991. "Cluster analysis for measuring welfare and quality of life across countries," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1-2), pages 131-150, October.
  25. Maria Ana Lugo, 2005. "Comparing Multidimensional Indices of Inequality: methods and application," Working Papers 14, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Belhadj, Besma, 2011. "New fuzzy indices of poverty by distinguishing three levels of poverty," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 221-231, September.
  2. Joachim Merz & Tim Rathjen, 2011. "Zeit- und Einkommensarmut von Freien Berufen und Unternehmern," FFB-Discussionpaper 89, Research Institute on Professions (Forschungsinstitut Freie Berufe (FFB)), LEUPHANA University Lüneburg.
  3. Joachim Merz & Tim Rathjen, 2011. "Intensity of Time and Income Interdependent Multidimensional Poverty: Well-Being and Minimum 2DGAP – German Evidence," FFB-Discussionpaper 92, Research Institute on Professions (Forschungsinstitut Freie Berufe (FFB)), LEUPHANA University Lüneburg.
  4. Joachim Merz & Tim Rathjen, 2009. "Time and income poverty: An interdependent multidimensional poverty approach with German time use diary data," Working Papers 126, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
  5. Joachim Merz & Henning Stolze, 2010. "Kumulation von Querschnitten - Evaluierung alternativer Konzepte für die kumulierten laufenden Wirtschaftsrechnungen 1999 bis 2003 im Vergleich zur Einkommens- und Verbrauchsstichprobe 2003," FFB-Discussionpaper 85, Research Institute on Professions (Forschungsinstitut Freie Berufe (FFB)), LEUPHANA University Lüneburg.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2008-85

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Maria Ana Lugo).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.