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Counting the missing poor in pre-industrial societies

Author

Listed:
  • Lefebvre, Mathieu
  • Pestieau, Pierre

    (Université catholique de Louvain, LIDAM/CORE, Belgium)

  • Ponthiere, Gregory

    (Université catholique de Louvain)

Abstract

Under income-differentiated mortality, poverty measures suffer from a selection bias: they do not count the missing poor (i.e., persons who would have been counted as poor provided they did not die prematurely). The Pre-Industrial period being characterized by an evolutionary advantage (i.e., a higher number of surviving children per household) of the non-poor over the poor, one may expect that the missing poor bias is substantial during that period. This paper quantifies the missing poor bias in Pre-Industrial societies, by computing the hypothetical headcount poverty rates that would have prevailed provided the non-poor did not benefit from an evolutionary advantage over the poor. Using data on Pre-Industrial England and France, we show that the sign and size of the missing poor bias are sensitive to the degree of downward social mobility.

Suggested Citation

  • Lefebvre, Mathieu & Pestieau, Pierre & Ponthiere, Gregory, 2023. "Counting the missing poor in pre-industrial societies," LIDAM Reprints CORE 3260, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    • Handle: RePEc:cor:louvrp:3260
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11698-022-00243-y
    Note: In: Cliometrica, 2023, vol. 17(1), p. 155-183
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    JEL classification:

    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • N33 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: Pre-1913

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