Subjective poverty lines and quality life potential (QLP)in Spain. An application from the EPF 1990-91

The Quality Life Potential (QLP)is a new well-being measure introduced in Pinilla and Goerlich (2004).The QLP combines income above social poverty line with life expectancy at any age according to a quality life function.If we want to calculate the QLP,we need to choose a poverty line measure.The best choice would probably be a subjective poverty line (SPL)but this is not always possible. The objective of this note is to asses the relevance of the poverty line chosen for QLP estimation. The QLP indicator will be calculated using both,a subjective poverty line and a conventional relative poverty line.We use the 1990-91 Household Budget Survey (EPF) because it includes the relevant information.Furthermore,the estimated QLP will be compared to some conventional income measures as the per capita income. In general the poverty indicators are quite different depending on the chosen method, but the QLP presents only small differences.At least for 1990-91 Spanish data the results with the subjective poverty line and the relative poverty line are quite similar. More research is needed to check if this similarity keeps valid along time.