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Poverty in Tunisia: A Fuzzy Measurement Approach

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  • Besma Belhadj
  • Mohamed Salah Matoussi

Abstract

Although poverty is widely recognised as a multidimensional phenomenon, we still believe that monetary aspect has a fundamental role and therefore deserves a special treatment. For this reason we propose an individual unidimensional measure according to a fuzzy approach that, unlike conventional methods, is consistent with the vague nature of poverty and preserves all the available statistical information. Referred to the overall population, we use an Information Theory approach to design unidimensional fuzzy collective index. The methodology proposed here is illustrated by means of the Tunisia case.

Suggested Citation

  • Besma Belhadj & Mohamed Salah Matoussi, 2010. "Poverty in Tunisia: A Fuzzy Measurement Approach," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 146(II), pages 431-450, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:ses:arsjes:2010-ii-1
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Foster, James & Greer, Joel & Thorbecke, Erik, 1984. "A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 761-766, May.
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    11. Gianni Betti & Bruno Cheli & Riccardo Cambini, 2004. "A statistical model for the dynamics between two fuzzy states: theory and an application to poverty analysis," Metron - International Journal of Statistics, Dipartimento di Statistica, Probabilità e Statistiche Applicate - University of Rome, vol. 0(3), pages 391-411.
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    Cited by:

    1. Asma Zedini & Besma Belhadj, 2015. "A New Approach to Unidimensional Poverty Analysis: Application to the Tunisian Case," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(3), pages 465-476, September.
    2. Khaled Nasri & Besma Belhadj, 2018. "Measuring Vulnerability to Multidimensional Poverty in Tunisia: Dual cut-off method and Fuzzy Sets approach," Working Papers 1262, Economic Research Forum, revised 03 Dec 2018.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    fuzzy sets; poverty; poverty line; membership function; information function;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • P46 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems - - - Consumer Economics; Health; Education and Training; Welfare, Income, Wealth, and Poverty
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

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