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Counting and Multidimensional Poverty Measurement

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Listed author(s):
  • Sabina Alkire and James Foster

Abstract

This paper proposes a new methodology for multidimensional poverty measurement consisting of an identification method ρκ that extends traditional approaches, and a class of poverty measures Ma that satisfies several desirable properties including decomposability. Our identification step employs two forms of cutoff: one within each dimension and a second across dimensions that identifies the poor by counting their deprivations. We aggregate using Foster-Greer-Thorbecke measures adjusted for multidimensionality. Our adjusted headcount ratio is well suited for use with ordinal data. Examples from Indonesia and the US illustrate our methodology.

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File URL: http://www3.qeh.ox.ac.uk/pdf/ophiwp/OPHIWP007.pdf
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Paper provided by Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford in its series OPHI Working Papers with number ophiwp007.

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Date of creation: Feb 2009
Handle: RePEc:qeh:ophiwp:ophiwp007
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Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
  • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
  • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
  • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
  • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government

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  7. Alkire, Sabina, 2002. "Dimensions of Human Development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 181-205, February.
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  10. Feres, Juan Carlos & Mancero, Xavier, 2000. "El método de las necesidades básicas insatisfechas (NBI) y sus aplicaciones en América Latina," Sede de la CEPAL en Santiago (Estudios e Investigaciones) 31527, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
  11. Caterina Ruggeri Laderchi & Ruhi Saith & Frances Stewart, 2003. "Does it Matter that we do not Agree on the Definition of Poverty? A Comparison of Four Approaches," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 243-274.
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  15. Sen, Amartya, 1997. "On Economic Inequality," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198292975.
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  21. Samuels, Warren J., 2002. "Machine Dreams: Economics Becomes a Cyborg Science. By Philip Mirowski. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv, 655. $35.00, paper," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(03), pages 913-915, September.
  22. Sen, Amartya K, 1976. "Poverty: An Ordinal Approach to Measurement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(2), pages 219-231, March.
  23. Alkire, Sabina, 2008. "Choosing Dimensions: The Capability Approach and Multidimensional Poverty," MPRA Paper 8862, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  24. Kai-yuen Tsui, 2002. "Multidimensional poverty indices," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 19(1), pages 69-93.
  25. Kannai, Yakar, 1980. "The ALEP definition of complementarity and least concave utility functions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 115-117, February.
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  1. #HEJC for 17/10/2013
    by paulmitchell1 in The Academic Health Economists' Blog on 2013-10-10 05:30:39
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