Agency is inescapably plural in both concept and measurement. In Sen’s account of agency, i) agency is exercised with respect to goals the person values; ii) agency includes effective power as well as direct control; iii) agency may advance wellbeing or may address other-regarding goals; iv)...

Multidimensional measures provide an alternative lens through which poverty may be viewed and understood. In recent work we have attempted to offer a practical approach to identifying the poor and measuring aggregate poverty (Alkire and Foster 2011). As this is quite a departure from traditional...

This paper proposes a method for adjusting the HDI to reflect the distribution of human development achievements across the population, and across dimensions, using an inequality measure from the Atkinson family. We begin with a discussion of the proposed indices in an idealized setting where...

Multidimensional measures provide an alternative lens through which poverty may be viewed and understood. In recent work we have attempted to offer a practical approach to identifying the poor and measuring aggregate poverty (Alkire and Foster 2011). As this is quite a departure from traditional...

This paper reexamines key results from the measurement of opportunity freedom, or the extent to which a set of options offers a decision maker real opportunities to achieve. Three cases are investigated: no preferences, a single preference, and plural preferences. The three co the cardinality...

This paper presents an intuitive approach for comparing opportunity sets in freedom they offer. The decision maker faces a range of scenarios, here modeled as a collection of possible preference orderings over alternatives. One set is said to have greater effective freedom if, for each...

This report addresses the challenges arising from a change in Mexico’s official poverty methodology from an income-only basis to a multidimensional basis that includes education, access to health services, access to social security, shelter characteristics, access to basic services, access to...

For economic ideas to take root and change history, a number of ingredients need to be present, ranging from individual agents to policy implementation. This paper identifies certain strategic levers that underlay the success of free market economists in promoting their approach in academia,...

India has witnessed high economic growth since the 1980s, and a reduction in the share of income poor, though the measured extent of this reduction varies, has been confirmed by different methods. Poverty, however, has multiple dimensions, hence this paper explores the improvement in other...

The identification of poor households has been passionately debated in India. Since 1992 the Indian government has identified households as living below the poverty line (BPL) and hence eligible for certain benefits. Such identification exercises occurred three times, and a fourth BPL...