Povertà

What does poverty mean? Who is poor? And how to measure poverty? Notwithstanding its intuitive nature, the analysis of poverty is fraught with difficulties and disagreement with regard to both its definition and its measurement. To this purpose, this paper proposes a wide review of the debate that has characterised the long history of poverty and a critical analysis of the main indicators used for its measurement. It will be seen that an apparently simple concept may have a complex and not sharply defined realisation.