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Indicators of Inequality and Poverty

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Author Info
Subramanian, S.
Abstract

This essay aims at a broad, main-stream account of the literature on inequality and poverty measurement in the space of income and, additionally, deals with measures of disparity and deprivation in the more expanded domain of capabilities and functionings. In addition to an introductory and a concluding part, the paper has four sections. The first of these, on measurement of income inequality, deals with preliminary concepts and definitions; a visual representation of inequality (the Lorenz curve); real-valued indices of inequality; properties of inequality indices; some specific inequality measures; and the relationship between Lorenz, welfare, and inequality orderings. The second section, on poverty, deals with the identification and aggregation exercises; properties of poverty indices; some specific poverty measures; the problem of plurality and unambiguous rankings; poverty measures and anti-poverty policy; and other issues in the measurement of poverty. The third section considers aspects of both congruence and conflict in the relationship amongst poverty, inequality, and welfare. The final substantive section advances the rationale for a more comprehensive assessment of human wellbeing than is afforded by the income perspective, it briefly reviews measurement concerns relating to generalized indices of deprivation and disparity, and it discusses the data and policy implications of the more expansive view of well-being adopted in the section.

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Paper provided by World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER) in its series Working Papers with number UNU-WIDER Research Paper RP2004/25.

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Length: 16 pages
Date of creation: 2004
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Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:rp2004-25

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Keywords: inequality; disparity; poverty; deprivation; measurement; income; capability; functioning; well-being;

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  1. Foster, James E & Shorrocks, Anthony F, 1991. "Subgroup Consistent Poverty Indices," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(3), pages 687-709, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Cowell, Frank A, 1984. "The Structure of American Income Inequality," Review of Income and Wealth, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 30(3), pages 351-75, September.
  3. 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)
  4. Basu, Kaushik, 1987. "Axioms for a fuzzy measure of inequality," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 275-288, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Fields, Gary S & Fei, John C H, 1978. "On Inequality Comparisons," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(2), pages 303-16, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Sen, Amartya, 1979. " Issues in the Measurement of Poverty," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 81(2), pages 285-307.
  7. Sen, Amartya, 1981. "Public Action and the Quality of Life in Developing Countries," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 43(4), pages 287-319, November.
  8. Besley, Timothy J & Kanbur, S M Ravi, 1988. "Food Subsidies and Poverty Alleviation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 98(392), pages 701-19, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. James E. Foster & Efe A. Ok, 1999. "Lorenz Dominance and the Variance of Logarithms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(4), pages 901-908, July.
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  10. Kundu, Amitabh & Smith, Tony E, 1983. "An Impossibility Theorem on Poverty Indices," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 24(2), pages 423-34, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Zheng, Buhong, 1997. " Aggregate Poverty Measures," Journal of Economic Surveys, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 11(2), pages 123-62, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Shorrocks, Anthony F, 1995. "Revisiting the Sen Poverty Index," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(5), pages 1225-30, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Thon, Dominique, 1979. "On Measuring Poverty," Review of Income and Wealth, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 25(4), pages 429-39, December.
  15. Shorrocks, Anthony F & Foster, James E, 1987. "Transfer Sensitive Inequality Measures," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(3), pages 485-97, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Dasgupta, Partha & Sen, Amartya & Starrett, David, 1973. "Notes on the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 180-187, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Kakwani, N., 1993. "Performance in living standards : An international comparison," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 307-336, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Brent, Robert J., 1986. "An axiomatic basis for the three objective social welfare function within a poverty context," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 89-94. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Pyatt, Graham, 1987. "Measuring Welfare, Poverty and Inequality," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 97(386), pages 459-67, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Ravallion, Martin & Chao, Kalvin, 1989. "Targeted policies for poverty alleviation under imperfect information: Algorithms and applications," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 213-224. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Sen, Amartya, 1983. "Poor, Relatively Speaking," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 35(2), pages 153-69, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  22. Manabi Majumdar & S. Subramanian, 2001. "Capability failure and group disparities: some evidence from India for the 1980s," The Journal of Development Studies, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 37(5), pages 104-140, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  23. Foster, James E, 1998. "Absolute versus Relative Poverty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 335-41, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  24. Besley, Timothy, 1990. "Means Testing versus Universal Provision in Poverty Alleviation Programmes," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 57(225), pages 119-29, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  25. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  26. 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)
  27. Blakorby, Charles & Donaldson, David, 1980. "Ethical Indices for the Measurement of Poverty," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 1053-60, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  28. Mukherjee, Diganta, 2001. "Measuring multidimensional deprivation," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 233-251, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  31. Vaughan, R N, 1987. "Welfare Approaches to the Measurement of Poverty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 97(388a), pages 160-70, Supplemen. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  32. Chakravarty, Satya R., 1983. "A new index of poverty," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 307-313, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  33. 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)
  34. Datt, Gaurav & Ravallion, Martin, 1992. "Growth and redistribution components of changes in poverty measures : A decomposition with applications to Brazil and India in the 1980s," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 275-295, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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