Poverty lines
Inter-country comparisons of poverty based on a capability approach: an empirical exercise
Poverty estimation techniques
Authors:
S. Reddy; S. Visaria; M. Asali
Publisher:
Institute of Social Analysis, New York, 2006
For an exercise of poverty assessment to be meaningful, it is necessary (although not sufficient) to apply a single identification criterion to all individuals. Efforts to assess poverty at the regional and global levels are as subject to this demand as are poverty assessments within the national context. Meaningful inter-country comparison and aggregation requires that a common identification criterion be applied in all countries.
This paper shows that it is possible to use existing household survey data from three different countries (Nicaragua, Tanzania, and Vietnam) to define a uniform capability-based criterion for identifying the poor.
The capability to be adequately nourished is used to establish poverty lines that possess a common capability-based interpretation in all three countries and then estimate poverty in these countries. These results are then compared to those derived from money-metric international poverty lines.
The proposed methodology leads to substantially different estimates of absolute and relative poverty levels than money-metric poverty lines. This suggests that existing methods of poverty estimation need to be critically reevaluated.
