MacArthur Network, Princeton University

The MacArthur Network on Inequality and Poverty is a loosely knit research group concerned with a wide range of issues, all of which relate to poverty and inequality. It seeks to improve traditional definitions of welfare and living standards by going beyond the usual income or consumption based measures.

One line of research considers extensions of the standard approaches, and how income and consumption measures can be modified, for example through adjustments for household size, so as to more usefully capture inequality and poverty. Another line moves away from income altogether, and considers inequality and deprivation in other important outcomes, particularly health, life-chances, and education. The Institute is concerned with methodological issues as to how inequality and poverty should be defined and measured over non-income measures, as well as with the substantive issues of how different measures relate to one another, for example on the relationship between income inequality and health inequality.