Knowledge Centre : Economy : Economic Disparity And Poverty : Measuring Poverty : Page 2
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Links
- PovcalNet
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PovcalNet is an interactive computational tool that allows you to replicate the calculations made by the World Bank's researchers in estimating the extent of absolute poverty in the world. It also allows you to calculate the poverty measures under different assumptions and to assemble the estimates using alternative country groupings or for any set of individual countries of your choosing. PovcalNet is self-contained; it has reliable built-in software that immediately does the relevant calculations for you from the built-in database.
http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/jsp/index.jsp
(Added: Tue Mar 08 2005 Modified: Wed Jun 15 2005 Hits: 143)
- The Meaning and Measurement of Poverty: A Look into the Global Debate
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Development Gateway, Author: Mona Mowafi. For years, policymakers largely took for granted the legitimacy and validity of the absolute poverty line as a means for defining and measuring poverty worldwide. Recently, however, with increased pressure to answer for failed policies in the past and to meet renewed commitments for the future, the international community has doubled up its efforts to examine the root causes of poverty. With researchers from a cross-section of disciplines contributing to this project, several innovative approaches have emerged. In her paper "The Meaning and Measurement of Poverty: A Look into the Global Debate" Mona Mowafi reviews the most prominent methods under consideration: the income poverty, human poverty, capabilities, and participatory approaches.
http://topics.developmentgateway.org/poverty/highlights/default/showMore.do
(Added: Fri Oct 01 2004 Modified: Wed Jun 15 2005 Hits: 363)
- Poverty Assessment Tools
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USAID website dedicated to the development of tools for assessing the poverty level of its microenterprise beneficiaries.
(Added: Fri May 21 2004 Modified: Wed Jun 15 2005 Hits: 186)
- Who is not Poor? Proposing A Higher International Standard for Poverty (PDF)
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CGD Working Paper # 33 Lant Pritchett, November 2003. Abstract: Poverty reduction is now, and quite properly should remain, the primary objective of the World Bank. But, when the World Bank dreams of a world free of poverty-what should it be dreaming? I argue in this essay that the dream should be a bold one, that treats citizens of all nations equally in defining poverty, and that sets a high standard for what eliminating poverty will mean for human well-being. I purpose a new standard for global income poverty for the World Bank's use. This poverty line is the weighted average of the poverty lines declared by its shareholders, where the declared poverty line is no lower than the country uses for its own citizens. I show this will imply a poverty line of around U.S.$15 a day in current purchasing power adjusted currency units-about ten times higher than the existing standard.
http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/2758
(Added: Thu Dec 18 2003 Modified: Tue Sep 12 2006 Hits: 539)
- What Is Poverty And How To Measure It? (PDF)
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Somchai Jitsuchon, December 2001 TDRI Quarterly Review. The true meaning of poverty has become a subject of intense debate over the last few years. This is particularly the case in Thailand, where there is a growing criticism of the past and present path of economic development and its alleged ability to bring true welfare to the country's people, especially the less fortunate ones. This paper is an initial step to reconcile the seemingly different definitions of poverty. It does so by gathering in one place the poverty definitions, or the characteristics of the poor, proposed by three distinct groups of stakeholders: the poor, the academics, and the policy makers.
http://www.info.tdri.or.th/library/quarterly/text/d01_2.pdf
(Added: Wed Jun 25 2003 Modified: Wed Jun 15 2005 Hits: 361)
- Counting the poor: do the poor count?
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The Bretton Woods Project comments on the debate as to whether the world "on the right track" in terms of poverty reduction? They say: the World Bank seems to believe so. Statements by the World Bank on good policies, aid effectiveness and selectivity give the impression that resources allocated to the World Bank are efficiently contributing to poverty reduction. The case for aid has been abundantly made by James Wolfensohn after 11 September, in the run-up to the Monterrey conference and during negotiations on IDA replenishment. However Sanjay Reddy and Thomas Pogge of Columbia University, in a paper entitled How not to count the poor give a scathing account of the problems with the World Bank's poverty numbers. They say an ill-defined poverty line, a misleading and inaccurate measure of purchasing power equivalence, and false precision are the three main errors that may lead to "a large understatement of the extent of global income poverty and to an incorrect inference that it has declined." This allows the World Bank to insist that the world is indeed "on the right track" in terms of poverty reduction strategy, attributing this 'success' to the design and implementation of 'good' or 'better policies'.
http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/topic/governance/g2904countpoor.html
(Added: Mon Jun 23 2003 Modified: Wed Jun 15 2005 Hits: 337)
- How Not to Count the Poor (PDF)
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A paper critical of the World Bank's estimates of global income poverty, by economist Sanjay Reddy and the philosopher Thomas Pogge (PDF 499KB). See also summary of this report, "Unknown: The Extent, Distribution, and Trend of Global Income Poverty"
http://www.columbia.edu/~sr793/count.pdf
(Added: Mon Jun 23 2003 Modified: Wed Jun 15 2005 Hits: 430)
- How Not to Count the Poor! A Reply to Ravallion (PDF)
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The World Bank, via staff memer Martin Ravallion, have responded to Reddy and Pogge's repot "How Not to Count the Poor". This is a reply to that reply by the original authors. (PDF 39KB)
http://www.columbia.edu/~sr793/poggereddyreply.pdf
(Added: Mon Jun 23 2003 Modified: Wed Jun 15 2005 Hits: 295)
- How Not to Count the Poor! A Reply to Reddy (PDF)
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The World Bank, via staff memer Martin Ravallion, have responded to Reddy and Pogge's report "How Not to Count the Poor". He writes: Reddy and Pogge begin their paper as follows: How many poor people are there in the world? This simple question is surprisingly difficult to answer. I would argue instead that there is nothing simple about the question, and nothing surprising about how difficult it is to answer it. Reddy and Pogge have oversimplified the problem of measuring poverty in the world, and exaggerated the supposed faults in the Bank's methods. (PDF 48KB)
http://www.columbia.edu/~sr793/wbreply.pdf
(Added: Mon Jun 23 2003 Modified: Wed Jun 15 2005 Hits: 306)
- Mind the gap the debate over global inequality heats up
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Professor Dani Rodrik is Rafiq Hariri Professor of International Political Economy at the JFK School of Government and a Faculty Associate at the CID. Rodrik comments on the debate centering on how to measure poverty.
http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cidinthenews/articles/Globe_010503.html
(Added: Mon Jun 23 2003 Modified: Wed Jun 15 2005 Hits: 238)
- Monitoring Global Poverty: Better Options for the Future (PDF)
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A slide presentation by Sanjay Reddy and Thomas Pogge outlining the main issues on monitoring global poverty (PDF 118KB).
http://www.columbia.edu/~sr793/BetterOptions.pdf
(Added: Mon Jun 23 2003 Modified: Wed Jun 15 2005 Hits: 201)
- Rich in Imagination
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By George Monbiot, May 06, 2003. The figures which purport to show that the world's poor are emerging from poverty don't add up. A new paper by the economist Sanjay Reddy and the philosopher Thomas Pogge demonstrates that the World Bank's methodology is so flawed that its calculations cannot possibly be correct. Not only do they appear wildly to underestimate the level of global poverty, but the downward trend they purport to show seems to be an artifact of the way in which they have been compiled. The World Bank's figures, against which the success or failure of the entire global economy is measured, are useless.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=10&ItemID=3575
(Added: Mon Jun 23 2003 Modified: Wed Jun 15 2005 Hits: 246)
- Unknown: The Extent, Distribution, and Trend of Global Income Poverty (PDF)
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A short and accessible summary of the report "How Not to Count the Poor" by economist Sanjay Reddy and the philosopher Thomas Pogge (PDF 113KB).
http://www.columbia.edu/~sr793/povpop.pdf
(Added: Mon Jun 23 2003 Modified: Wed Jun 15 2005 Hits: 210)
- What is Poverty?
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Letter to editors of the New York Review of Books, by Howard Nye, Sanjay Reddy, and Thomas W. Pogge, with a reply by Benjamin M. Friedman. Centres on the debate of how to measure poverty.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/15827
(Added: Mon Jun 23 2003 Modified: Wed Jun 15 2005 Hits: 253)
- World Bank poverty data, methodology faulted
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Two US academics have disputed the validity of the World Bank's global poverty statistics, exposing serious conceptual and methodological shortcomings in its calculations of poverty levels worldwide. Use of these flawed figures, they contend, may have led to a substantial underestimation of the extent of world poverty and to mistaken inferences that global income poverty has fallen. By Chakravarthi Raghavan of the Third World Network, Third World Economics No. 287 (16-31 August 2002).
http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/twe287c.htm
(Added: Mon Jun 23 2003 Modified: Wed Jun 15 2005 Hits: 215)
- Chronic poverty: scrutinizing estimates, patterns, correlates, and explanations (PDF)
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Shahin Yaqub, Poverty Research Unit, School of African and Asian Studies, Sussex University. Working Paper No 21 Chronic Poverty Research Centre, October 2002. The paper lists estimates of chronic poverty incidences in 25 countries. Research reveals its 'patterns' and socioeconomic 'correlates', but hardly 'explanations'. The patterns are three (economic insecurity, short-range mobility and path dependency) and the correlates are four (spatial, demographics and household type, human capital and labor, and physical assets). Important similarities are observed between developing and affluent countries in such patterns and correlates. In countries of vastly differing wealth, apparently people face some similar problems in fully participating and the burden of poverty is unequally shared over time, i.e. chronic poverty. Recognizing this, the paper draws on research in affluent countries centered more closely on life experiences. Such 'lifefull' approaches to chronic poverty contrast with present 'lifeless' approaches in developing countries. Useful explanations should understand the reversibility of chronic poverty, timeliness of reversals and relevance of outcomes.
(Added: Wed Jun 11 2003 Modified: Tue Sep 12 2006 Hits: 293)
- Poverty Mapping
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Poverty Mapping is a joint initiative by FAO, UNEP and the CGIAR consisting of a network of institutions dedicated to: analyse and map the spatial distribution of poverty; produce and promote the use of poverty maps and shows linkages between poverty and food insecurity, the environment and development; and, promote the use of poverty maps in policy making and targeting assistance. The ultimate target beneficiaries are all poor and vulnerable groups who can benefit from an enhanced understanding of poverty and its relationship to food insecurity, environmental degradation and vulnerability.
(Added: Mon Sep 16 2002 Modified: Wed Jun 15 2005 Hits: 243)
- Empowerment and Poverty Reduction: A Sourcebook (PDF)
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Edited by Deepa Narayan, World Bank, June 2002. Empowerment and Poverty Reduction: A Sourcebook is an outcome of World Development Report 2000/2001: Attacking Poverty, which highlighted opportunity, empowerment, and security as key elements in the creation and implementation of poverty reduction strategies. This book provides a framework for empowerment that concentrates on increasing poor people's freedom of choice and action to shape their own lives. This framework pertains to five areas of action to improve development effectiveness-provision of basic services, improved local governance, improved national governance, access to justice and legal aid, and pro-poor market development. This Sourcebook gives 20 "Tools and Practices," which concentrate on a wide-range of topics to encourage the empowerment of the poor from poor people's enterprises, information and communication technologies to diagnostic tools including corruption surveys and citizen report cards. Available in PDF.
http://publications.worldbank.org/ecommerce/catalog/product?item_id=1256877
(Added: Fri Jul 26 2002 Modified: Wed Jun 15 2005 Hits: 420)
