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)...

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...

This paper proposes how to select a methodology to target multidimensionally poor households, and how to update that targeting exercise periodically. We present this methodology in the context of discussions regarding the selection of a targeting methodology in India. In 1992, 1997, and 2002 the...

This paper proposes a new methodology for multidimensional poverty measurement consisting of: (i) an identification method ?k that extends the traditional intersection and union approaches, and (ii) a class of poverty measures M? that satisfies a range of desirable properties including...

The aim of this paper is to draw attention to ‘missing dimensions’ of poverty data – dimensions that are of value to poor people, but for which we have scant or no data. Amartya Sen frames development as the process of expanding the freedoms that people value and have reason to value....

This article proposes a short list of internationally-comparable indicators of individual agency and empowerment (and the corresponding survey questions). Data from these indicators would enable researchers to explore research and policy issues such as the interconnections between empowerment...

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 presents a new Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) for 104 developing countries. It is the first time multidimensional poverty is estimated using micro datasets (household surveys) for such a large number of countries which cover about 78 percent of the world´s population. The MPI...