POVERTY STATICS AND DYNAMICS: DOES THE ACCOUNTING PERIOD MATTER?

. Deciding on over what period should household income be measured in order to assess poverty may have significant effects on the incidence, the characterisation of poverty and its persistence. In general, there are two possible household income variables available in household surveys: Annual or current income. Surprisingly, the literature on poverty offers few pieces of research on this matter. In this paper we use a sub-annual panel on incomes for Spain in order to measure the effects of the income accounting period on both the statics (incidence and characterisation) and dynamics of poverty (mobility, exit and entry rates). Our analysis indicates that the accounting period option matters for results on poverty statics and dynamics.