This chapter reviews definitional issues that arise in assessing the extent of, and change in, poverty in western industrialized countries, including the choice of resource, level of poverty line and appropriate adjustments for the size and type of the income-sharing unit. The chapter also...

Standard household economics assumes that couples pool their incomes and share the sum equally, which is a necessary prerequisite for computing equivalent incomes and hence all statements about the distribution of personal incomes and income poverty. However, since cohabitation without marriage...

This paper shows how distance functions, a tool typically employed in production economics to measure the distance between a set of inputs and a set of outputs, can be employed to approximate a composite measure encompassing the many dimensions of well-being. It also illustrates how to implement...

In this paper we compute a multi-dimensional poverty index (MPI) for Uganda following the approach proposed by Alkire and Forster (2007). Using household survey data we show how the incidence of multi-dimensional poverty has fallen in recent years and we use the decomposability features of the...

Does predicted global warming imply more hunger in the future of Latin America? Climate projections prepared by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are briefly presented, along with an analysis of existing estimates of their probable impact on agriculture and food...

This paper develops a new combined-wealth measure by augmenting data on net worth from the Survey of Consumer Finances with estimates of defined benefit (DB) pension and expected Social Security wealth. We use this concept to explore retirement preparation among two groups of households in...

Different family types may have a fixed flow of consumption costs related to subsistence needs. We use a survey approach in order to identify and estimate such a fixed component of spending for different families. Our method involves making direct questions about the linkup between aggregate...

In this study we construct a composite index from a set of non monetary household's living conditions indicators (WBCI) in order to analyze the evolution of poverty and inequality in Tunisia between 1988 and 2001 in a multidimensional perspective. We show that poverty has been a significant...

Most of the earlier studies of poverty in Kenya have basically been static in nature. They have attempted to measure household welfare - incidence, gap and severity - at a point in time. Such studies are undeniably vital. However, they do not necessarily provide a good indication of welfare...

We review The Great Indian Poverty Debate edited by Angus Deaton and Valerie Kozel. The volume has great value as a survey of the complex issues involved in estimating poverty in India, which have recently been the subject of substantial controversy. However, the volume has notable omissions....