I discuss the measurement of world poverty and inequality, with particular attention to the role of PPP price indexes from the International Comparison Project. Global inequality increased with the latest revision of the ICP, and this reduced the global poverty line relative to the US dollar....

This paper estimates the number of poor in various countries in Asia by applying an "amalgam poverty line", which is a weighted average of an absolute poverty line (such as $1.25 per day or $1.45 per day) and a reference income (such as the mean or the median income). The number of poor is...

This paper estimates the number of poor in various countries in Asia by applying an "amalgam poverty line", which is a weighted average of an absolute poverty line (such as $1.25 per day or $1.45 per day) and a reference income (such as the mean or the median income). The number of poor is...

In this paper we make a methodological proposal to measure poverty accounting for time by proposing a new index that aims at reconciling the way poverty is measured in a static and a dynamic framework. Our index is able to consider the duration of the poverty spell and the social preference for...

This chapter reviews definitional issues that arise in assessing the extent of, and change in, poverty in western industrialized countries, including the choice of resource, level of poverty line and appropriate adjustments for the size and type of the income-sharing unit. The chapter also...

In this paper we make a methodological proposal to measure poverty accounting for time by proposing a new index that aims at reconciling the way poverty is measured in a static and a dynamic framework. Our index is able to consider the duration of the poverty spell and the social preference for...

Many empirical studies have shown that economic growth generally leads to a drop in poverty. These studies have also pointed out that a given growth rate is compatible with a large range of outcomes in terms of poverty reduction. This means that growth is more pro-poor in certain cases than in...

Putting the combat against poverty to the fore as the main objective of the development process has raised the issue of the linkage between economic growth, inequality and poverty. There is now a growing agreement that both the rate and the distributional impact of growth are important in...

The increasing interest in multidimensional poverty and well-being analysis has added complexity to the way these phenomena are conceptualized and measured. When multiple attributes are considered, a criterion determining the relative importance attached to the different dimensions has to be...

The recent revision of the World Bank’s global poverty estimates based on a new $1.25 (2005 PPP) poverty line underlines their unreliability and lack of meaningfulness. It is very difficult to justify various aspects of the Bank’s approach. In the short term, less weight should be given to...