Summary One of the most frequent critiques of the HDI is that it does not take into account inequality within countries. We suggest a methodology which allows to compute the three components and the overall HDI for quintiles of the income distribution. This allows comparisons of the level in...

The informal sector is typically characterized as being very heterogeneous and possibly composed of two clearly distinct segments, sometimes called the lower and upper tiers. However, empirical evidence shows that even among lower tier entrepreneurs profitability can be quite high. We combine...

Summary This paper first reviews the debate on the definition of pro-poor growth and argues that a relative definition has merits when defining the state of pro-poor growth, while an absolute definition is most suitable when analyzing the rate of pro-poor growth. The second contribution is to...

Summary Current concepts and measures of pro-poor growth are entirely focused on the income dimension of well-being. This neglects non-income dimensions of poverty as well as the multidimensionality of poverty and well-being. In this paper, we extend the pro-poor growth toolbox to individual and...

One of the most serious weaknesses of the human development index (HDI) is that it does not take into account the distribution of human development within a country. All attempts to capture inequality in the HDI have used aggregate information and there exists no HDI at the household level. We...