The World Bank’s global poverty estimates suffer from deep-seated problems arising from a single source, the lack of a standard for identifying who is poor and who is not that is consistent and meaningful. The new choice of an international poverty line of $1.90 (2011 PPP) does not in any way...

We introduce two separate datasets (The Global Consumption Dataset (GCD) and The Global Income Dataset (GID)) containing an unprecedented portrait of consumption and income of persons over time, within and across countries, around the world. The benchmark version of the dataset presents...

We introduce two separate datasets - the Global Consumption Dataset and the Global Income Dataset - containing an unprecedented portrait of consumption and income of persons over time, within and across countries, around the world. The benchmark version of the dataset presents estimates in...

The first Sustainable Development Goal of “Ending poverty in all its forms everywhere” must be interpreted in light of an understanding of what poverty in all its forms means societally, and cannot be reduced only to a narrowly technical understanding, even that promoted by official...

The World Bank's approach to estimating the extent, distribution and trend of global income poverty is neither meaningful nor reliable. The Bank uses an arbitrary international poverty line that is not adequately anchored in any specification of the real requirements of human beings. Moreover,...

Poverty measures that are widely used generate inconsistency and incoherence because of their failure to be adequately grounded in a conception of what ultimately matters and why. Obscurantism in relation to underlying values is the ultimate source of the observed difficulties. Only poverty...