Bottom Incomes and the Measurement of Poverty: A Brief Assessment of the Literature

Lidia Ceriani (), Vladimir Hlasny and Paolo Verme

No 589, Working Papers from ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality

Abstract: The paper discusses the main issues related to negative and zero incomes that are relevant for the measurement of poverty. It shows the prevalence of non-positive incomes in high- and middle-income countries, provides an analysis of the sources and structure of these incomes, outlines the various approaches proposed by scholars and statistical agencies to treat non-positive incomes, and explains how non-positive incomes and alternative correction methods impact the measurement of standard poverty indexes. It is argued that negative and zero incomes cannot be treated equally in terms of household well-being and that standard methods used by practitioners fail to recognize this fact likely resulting in overestimations of poverty.

Keywords: Welfare measurement; Well-being; Poverty targeting; High- and middle-income countries; Survey non-response; Negative incomes; Zero incomes; Extreme income corrections (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 D63 I32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2021-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-isf and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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http://www.ecineq.org/milano/WP/ECINEQ2021-589.pdf First version, 2021 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Bottom Incomes and the Measurement of Poverty: A Brief Assessment of the Literature (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2021-589

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