Deals with the opinion of 19th century landowner and politician William Parnell on the 'Essay on Population' written by Thomas Malthus. Relation of poverty and population.

This paper analyses levels of low literacy across twelve countries using the International Adult Literacy Survey. We go beyond existing work that only looks at the proportions below certain critical levels of literacy. Using methods developed for the measurement of poverty we calculate measures...

The relatively widespread use of poverty measures is analysed and their properties compared with other definitions of welfare. Using a synthetic data set but one which shares some properties of the Irish income distribution of 1987, a number of changes in incomes are simulated and their impact...

When measuring poverty over time analysts must choose the value of the income elasticity of the poverty line, which essentially determines whether an absolute or relative poverty line is being used. The choice of this parameter is ultimately a value judgement but this paper suggests an approach...