Debates on the Measurement of Global Poverty

The international community's commitment to halve global poverty by 2015 has been enshrined in the first Millennium Development Goal. How global poverty is measured is a critical element in assessing progress towards this goal, and different researchers have presented widely-varying estimates. The chapters in this volume address a range of problems in the measurement and estimation of global poverty, from a variety of viewpoints. Topics covered include the controversies surrounding the definition of a global poverty line; the use of purchasing power parity exchange rates to map the poverty line across countries; and the quality, and appropriate use, of data from national accounts and household surveys. Both official and independent estimates of global poverty have proved to be controversial, and this volume presents and analyses the lively debate that has ensued. Contributors to this volume - Sudhir Anand, University of Oxford Paul Segal, University of Oxford Joseph E. Stiglitz, Columbia University Martin Ravallion, Director of the Development Research Group, World Bank Sanjay G. Reddy, Barnard College, Columbia University Thomas W. Pogge, Australian National University and Yale University Surjit Bhalla, Oxus Research and Investments T. N. Srinivasan, Yale University Bettina Aten, Bureau of Economic Analysis Alan Heston, University of Pennsylvania Angus Deaton, Princeton University Robert Johnston Ivo Havinga Gisele Kamanou Viet Vu Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, The New School David Stewart Albert Berry, University of Toronto Carl Riskin, Queens College, CUNY and Columbia University Qin Gao, Fordham University Shaohua Chen, Development Economics Research Group, World Bank Suresh D .Tendulkar, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi K. Sundaram, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi David Sahn, Cornell University Stephen Younger, Cornell University