Has world poverty really fallen during the 1990s?
Abstract
We evaluate the claim that world consumption poverty has fallen during the 1990s in light of alternative assumptions about the extent of initial poverty and the rate of subsequent poverty reduction in China, India, and the rest of the developing world. We assess the extent of poverty using two indicators: the aggregate poverty headcount and the poverty headcount ratio, and consider two international poverty lines that are widely used ($1.08/day and $2.15/day 1993 PPP). We find that under some of the assumptions considered, world poverty has risen. We conclude that, because of uncertainties in relation to the extent and trend of poverty in China, India, and the rest of the developing world, world poverty may or may not have increased. The extent of the increase or decrease in world poverty is critically dependent on the assumptions made. Our conclusions suggest the importance of improving the quality of global poverty statistics.Download Info
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Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Development and Comp Systems with number 0509005.Length:
Date of creation: 07 Sep 2005
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:0509005
Note: Type of Document - pdf
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Related research
Keywords: world poverty; sensitivity analysis; China; India;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
- I30 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - General
- O53 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2005-11-09 (All new papers)
- NEP-DEV-2005-11-09 (Development)
- NEP-SEA-2005-11-09 (South East Asia)
- NEP-TRA-2005-11-09 (Transition Economics)
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Basu, Kaushik, 2006.
"Globalization, poverty, and inequality: What is the relationship? What can be done?,"
World Development,
Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1361-1373, August.
- Basu, Kaushik, 2005. "Globalization, Poverty and Inequality: What Is the Relationship? What Can Be Done?," Working Papers 05-13, Cornell University, Center for Analytic Economics.
- Basu, Kaushik, 2005. "Globalization, Poverty and Inequality: What Is the Relationship? What Can Be Done?," Working Papers RP2005/32, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
- Kaushik Basu, 2010. "Globalization, Poverty and Inequality: What Is the Relationship? What Can Be Done?," Working Papers id:3234, eSocialSciences.
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