A recent trend in the study of poverty is to consider a relative poverty line, one that is responsive to the nature of the income distribution. We develop an axiomatic approach to the determination of an amalgam poverty line. Given a reference income (e.g. the mean or the median), the amalgam...

In this paper, we present a new model for constructing poverty lines. The model uses consumer theory to construct both food and nonfood poverty thresholds. Although one cannot completely eliminate the value judgments inherent in the construction of poverty thresholds, this model helps to make...

Given Asia's record of rapid economic growth and the conceptual and empirical problems of the current international income poverty line ('dollar-a-day'), this paper discusses whether there is merit to develop an Asia-specific poverty line that addresses some of the shortcomings of the...

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...

Given a poverty line, a person who is non-poor (poor) currently may not be treated as non-poor (poor) in a vulnerable situation. This paper looks at the impact of vulnerability on the poverty line. The poverty line is adjusted in the presence of vulnerability such that the utility of a person at...

Although poverty is widely recognised as a multidimensional phenomenon, we still believe that monetary aspect has a fundamental role and therefore deserves a special treatment. For this reason we propose an individual unidimensional measure according to a fuzzy approach that, unlike conventional...

The standard practice in most OECD countries is to measure and evaluate poverty on the basis of a poverty line defined as a specific proportion of the median equivalent income within a country. However, this approach disregards regional differences in prices and needs within a country and may,...

Until recently, poverty was a relatively unexplored field of studies in Turkey. This is one of the first attempts outside Turkey to use household survey data from two nationally representative surveys conducted in 1987 and 1994 to get a picture of poverty and its main driving forces. The 1994...