Acute Multidimensional Poverty: A New Index for Developing Countries

Sabina Alkire and María Emma Santos

No 3, Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Berlin 2011 from Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics

Abstract: This paper presents a new Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) for 104 developing countries. It is the first time multidimensional poverty is estimated using micro datasets (household surveys) for such a large number of countries which cover about 78 percent of the world's population. The MPI has the mathematical structure of one of the Alkire and Foster poverty multidimensional measures and it is composed of ten indicators corresponding to same three dimensions as the Human Development Index: Education, Health and Standard of Living. The MPI captures a set of direct deprivations that batter a person at the same time. This tool could be used to target the poorest, track the Millennium Development Goals, and design policies that directly address the interlocking deprivations poor people experience. This paper presents the methodology and components in the MPI, describes main results, and shares basic robustness tests.

Keywords: Poverty Measurement; Multidimensional Poverty; Capability Approach; Multidimensional Welfare; Human Development; HDI; HPI (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 I3 I32 O1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-hap and nep-pke
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (40)

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https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/48297/1/3_alkire.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Acute Multidimensional Poverty: A New Index for Developing Countries (2010)
Working Paper: Acute Multidimensional Poverty: A New Index for Developing Countries (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:gdec11:3

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