Comparative poverty research flourishes, especially since comparable income data are easily available through the Luxembourg Income Study. However, a number of methodological pitfalls in comparative poverty research are often overlooked. There is a vast amount of literature on sensitivity of...

Most examinations of United States domestic antipoverty policy are inherently parochial, for they are based on the experiences of only our nation in isolation from the others. However, cross-national comparisons can also teach lessons about antipoverty policy. While all nations value low...

This paper develops the link between poverty and inequality by focusing on a class of poverty indices (some of them well-known) which aggregate normative concerns for absolute and relative deprivation. The indices are distinguished by a parameter that captures the ethical sensitivity of poverty...

This paper begins by asking how poverty in affluent countries should be measured, before examining recent evidence on poverty intensity and its social significance. Section 1 advocates use of the Sen-Shorrocks-Thon index of poverty intensity and introduces the 'Poverty Box' as a summary...

Despite serious methodological problems, quantitative studies of poverty by U.S. sociologists predominantly rely on the official U.S. measure. After reviewing the shortcomings of the official measure, this paper examines several econometric and theoretical advances in poverty measurement. In...

Changes in the headcount rate are the standard metric for gauging how public transfers and taxes affect poverty. An alternative strategy, one theoretically more appealing and complete, is to rely on distribution-sensitive indexes [Sen (1976, 1981)]. How would policies measured impacts change if...

Substantial cross-national differences in poverty alleviation are well documented, but theextent to which different parts of the social transfer system account for this variation is still relatively unexamined. This study analyses the redistributive effects of specific social policy institutions...

The paper investigates the definition of equity-regarding poverty measures when there are different household types in the population. It derives the implications of a between-type regressive transfer principle for poverty measures, for the choice of poverty lines and for the measurement of...

This study attempts to introduce a new method to measure relative income poverty. The aim is to find a solution which will combine information both on the depth of poverty and the quantity of the poor, i.e. the number of people living in poverty. Furthermore, a yardstick is sought which would be...