The design of a poverty measure involves the selection of a set of parameters and poverty figures. In most cases the measures are estimated from sample surveys. This raises the question of how conclusive particular poverty comparisons are subject to both the set of selected parameters (or...

In this paper we propose the use of an alternative methodology to track low incomes based on Atkinson`s (1970) family of "equally distributed equivalent income" functions, which are called "general means" here. We provide a new characterization of general means that justifies their use in this...