We review the recent empirical literature on global poverty, focusing on key methodological aspects. These include the choice of welfare indicator, poverty line and purchasing power parity exchange rates, equivalence scales, data sources, and estimation methods. We also discuss the importance of...

Current estimates of global poverty vary substantially across studies. In this paper we undertake a novel sensitivity analysis to highlight the importance of methodological choices in estimating global poverty. We measure global poverty using different data sources, parametric and nonparametric...

Current estimates of global poverty vary substantially across studies. We undertake a sensitivity analysis to highlight the importance of methodological choices by measuring global poverty using different data sources, parametric and nonparametric estimation methods, and multiple poverty lines....

The generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator is often used to test for convergence in income distribution in a dynamic panel set-up. We argue that though consistent, the GMM estimator utilizes the sample observations inefficiently. We propose a simple ordinary least squares (OLS) estimator...

Neoclassical models imply convergence of the entire distribution, not just the mean income levels. In this paper, we test for convergence in income inequality across countries. We compile extensive data on gini indices over a period of 25 years. Convergence in inequality is tested separately for...

Since the economic reforms of the early 1990s, the Indian economy witnessed a rapid rise in the mean income level, and, simultaneously, changes in the distribution of income. This study tries to capture how these changes affected poverty levels across major states in India. Total change in...

Over the last decade, India has been one of the fastest growing economies, and has experienced considerable decline in overall income poverty. However, in a vast country like India, poverty levels vary significantly across the different states. In this paper, we analyze the differences between...

This paper examines the phenomenon of real-income stagnation (in which real-income growth is negligible or negative for a sizable uninterrupted sequence of years). It analyzes data for four decades from a large cross-section of countries. Real income stagnation is a conceptually distinct...