The Monetary Approach to Poverty: A Survey of Concepts and Methods

This paper will briefly survey the monetary approach to poverty measurement - a set of techniques and methodologies, adopted mostly by economists, based on the identification of poverty with a shortfall in a monetary indicator and the "objective" derivation of a poverty line. In order to describe these methodologies, the underlying rationale and the factors which have contributed to the current shape of this "approach", we will start by discussing the origins of such an approach. This will allow us to substantiate our claim about the peculiar and measurement driven nature of this approach to the definition of poverty, as well as critically to assess the extent to which the "objectivity" of the methods makes the results immune from value judgements. Further, it will allow us to identify some crucial features of this approach, which will be discussed with respect to current developments in the literature. A particular emphasis will be placed on identifying the key issues which need to be addressed in the context of comparisons across investigations