Poverty Measurement

Abstract

Abstract This article focuses on the complexities and idiosyncrasies of poverty measurement, from its origins to current practice. It first considers various concepts of poverty and their measurement and how economists, social statisticians, public policy scholars, sociologists, and other social scientists have contributed to this literature. It then discusses a few empirical estimates of poverty across and within nations, drawing primarily on data from the Luxembourg Income Study and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to highlight levels and trends in overall poverty, while also referring to the World Bank’s measures of global absolute poverty. In the empirical examinations, the article takes a look at rich and middle-income countries and some developing nations. It compares trends in relative poverty over different time periods and in relative and anchored poverty across the Great Recession.