Comment on 'Counting the World's Poor' by Angus Deaton

• Tác giả: Martin Ravallion
• Ngôn ngữ: eng
• Ký hiệu phân loại: 330.91 Treatment by areas, regions, places in general
• Thông tin xuất bản: Washington, DC: World Bank, 2014
• Bộ sưu tập: Tài liệu truy cập mở
• ID: 307991
• Chủ đề: 1. ABSOLUTE POVERTY; 2. AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD EXPENDITURE; 3. CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURE; 4. CONSUMPTION MEASURE; 5. COUNTRY LEVEL

Tóm tắt

This issue provides a usefully critical discussion of the current methods used by the World Bank for measuring poverty. The author will not address all the points raised by Deaton- avoiding those on which the author thinks there is broad agreement that the World Bank s current methods can be improved. These include the way that (invariably troublesome) income surveys are handled, the scope for better use of subjective-qualitative welfare data, and the need to better acknowledge the limitations of welfare metrics based solely on consumption of market goods. This leaves two main issues that are very important for global poverty measurements- namely, how currency conversions are done and whether the poverty measures should be anchored to the national accounts. On both counts, Deaton makes recommendations for changing current methods. Before considering his recommendations, the author will briefly describe how the World Bank measures poverty.