Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Understandings and Misunderstandings of Multidimensional Poverty Measurement

Contents:

Author Info

  • Sabina Alkire and James Foster

Abstract

Multidimensional measures provide an alternative lens through which poverty may be viewed and understood. In recent work we have attempted to offer a practical approach to identifying the poor and measuring aggregate poverty (Alkire and Foster 2011). As this is quite a departure from traditional unidimensional and multidimensional poverty measurement – particularly with respect to the identification step – further elaboration may be warranted. In this paper we elucidate the strengths, limitations, and misunderstandings of multidimensional poverty measurement in order to clarify the debate and catalyse further research. We begin with general definitions of unidimensional and multidimensional methodologies for measuring poverty. We provide an intuitive description of our measurement approach, including a ‘dual cutoff’ identification step that views poverty as the state of being multiply deprived, and an aggregation step based on the traditional Foster Greer and Thorbecke (FGT) measures. We briefly discuss five characteristics of our methodology that are easily overlooked or mistaken and conclude with some brief remarks on the way forward.

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://www3.qeh.ox.ac.uk/pdf/ophiwp/OPHIWP043.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford in its series OPHI Working Papers with number ophiwp043.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: May 2011
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:qeh:ophiwp:ophiwp043

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Queen Elizabeth House 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford, OX1 3TB United Kingdom
Phone: +44 (1865) 281800
Fax: +44 (1865) 281801
Email:
Web page: http://ophi.qeh.ox.ac.uk/
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords:

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. Sabina Alkire and James Foster, 2010. "Designing the Inequality-Adjusted Human Development Index (HDI)," OPHI Working Papers ophiwp037, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
  2. BOSSERT, Walter & CHAKRAVARTY, Satya R. & D’AMBROSIO, Conchita, 2009. "Multidimensional Poverty and Material Deprivation," Cahiers de recherche 2009-11, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
  3. Kai-yuen Tsui, 2002. "Multidimensional poverty indices," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 69-93.
  4. François Bourguignon & Satya Chakravarty, 2003. "The Measurement of Multidimensional Poverty," Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 25-49, April.
  5. Sabina Alkire & Maria Emma Santos, 2010. "Acute Multidimensional Poverty: A New Index for Developing Countries," Human Development Research Papers (2009 to present) HDRP-2010-11, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
  6. Ma. Casilda Lasso de la Vega, 2009. "Counting poverty orderings and deprivation curves," Working Papers 150, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
  7. 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.
  8. Gaston Yalonetzky, 2011. "Conditions for the Most Robust Poverty Comparisons Using the Alkire-Foster Family of Measures," OPHI Working Papers ophiwp044b, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
  9. Duclos, Jean-Yves & Sahn, David & Younger, Stephen D., 2001. "Robust Multidimensional Poverty Comparisons," Cahiers de recherche 0115, Université Laval - Département d'économique.
  10. Gordon Anderson, 2008. "The empirical assessment of multidimensional welfare, inequality and poverty: Sample weighted multivariate generalizations of the Kolmogorov–Smirnov two sample tests for stochastic dominance," Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 73-87, March.
  11. Satya R. Chakravarty & Conchita D'Ambrosio, 2006. "The Measurement Of Social Exclusion," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 52(3), pages 377-398, 09.
  12. Alkire, Sabina & Foster, James, 2011. "Counting and multidimensional poverty measurement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 476-487.
  13. Atkinson, A B, 1987. "On the Measurement of Poverty," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(4), pages 749-64, July.
  14. Foster, James & Greer, Joel & Thorbecke, Erik, 1984. "A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 761-66, May.
  15. Decancq, Koen & Lugo, María Ana, 2010. "Weights in multidimensional indices of well-being: an overview," Open Access publications from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven urn:hdl:123456789/262767, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
  16. Ravallion, Martin, 2010. "Mashup indices of development," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5432, The World Bank.
  17. Sabina Alkire, 2011. "Multidimensional Poverty and its Discontents," OPHI Working Papers ophiwp046, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
  18. A. Atkinson, 2003. "Multidimensional Deprivation: Contrasting Social Welfare and Counting Approaches," Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 51-65, April.
  19. Nicole Rippin, 2010. "Poverty Severity in a Multidimensional Framework: The Issue of Inequality between Dimensions," Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth - Discussion Papers 47, Courant Research Centre PEG.
  20. Christopher J. Bennett and Shabana Mitra, 2011. "Multidimensional Poverty: Measurement, Estimation, and Inference," OPHI Working Papers ophiwp047, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
  21. Sen, Amartya K, 1976. "Poverty: An Ordinal Approach to Measurement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(2), pages 219-31, March.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Understandings and Misunderstandings of Multidimensional Poverty Measurement
    by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog on 2011-12-06 18:34:55
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Christopher T. Whelan & Brian Nolan & Bertrand Maître, 2012. "Multidimensional Poverty Measurement in Europe: An Application of the Adjusted Headcount Approach," Working Papers 201211, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
  2. Nancy Birdsall, 2011. "Comment on multi-dimensional indices," Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 489-491, September.
  3. Francisco Ferreira, 2011. "Poverty is multidimensional. But what are we going to do about it?," Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 493-495, September.
  4. Béassoum, Christian N., 2011. "Pauvreté régionale au Tchad en 2003: une situation de référence revisitée
    [Chad regional poverty profile in 2003: revisiting a baseline]    ," MPRA Paper 34505, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  5. David Roodman, 2011. "Composite indices," Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 483-484, September.
  6. Peichl, Andreas & Pestel, Nico, 2011. "Multidimensional Well-Being at the Top: Evidence for Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 6170, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  7. Callander, Emily Joy & Schofield, Deborah J. & Shrestha, Rupendra N., 2011. "Multi-dimensional poverty in Australia and the barriers ill health imposes on the employment of the disadvantaged," The Journal of Socio-Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 736-742.
  8. James Williams & Aisling Murray & Christopher Whelan, 2013. "Multi-dimensional Deprivation in Ireland Among 9-Year Olds in Ireland: An Analysis of the Growing Up in Ireland Survey," Working Papers 201305, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
  9. Andreas Peichl & Nico Pestel, 2011. "Multidimensional affluence: Theory and applications to Germany and the US," Working Papers 218, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
  10. Jacques Silber, 2011. "A comment on the MPI index," Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 479-481, September.
  11. Erik Thorbecke, 2011. "A comment on multidimensional poverty indices," Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 485-487, September.
  12. Sabina Alkire & James Foster & Maria Santos, 2011. "Where did identification go?," Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 501-505, September.
  13. Beja Jr, Edsel & Yap, David B., 2012. "Counting happiness from the individual level to the group level," MPRA Paper 40214, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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:qeh:ophiwp:ophiwp043

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

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.