The Emperor’s New Suit: Global Poverty Estimates Reappraised

Sanjay Reddy

Working Papers from United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs

Abstract: The recent revision of the World Bank’s global poverty estimates based on a new $1.25 (2005 PPP) poverty line underlines their unreliability and lack of meaningfulness. It is very difficult to justify various aspects of the Bank’s approach. In the short term, less weight should be given to the Bank’s poverty estimates in monitoring the first MDG. In the longer term, a solution to the observed problems requires adopting an altogether different method. Such an alternative exists but requires global institutional coordination. Until it is implemented, the crisis in the monitoring of global consumption poverty can be expected to intensify. Subsequent versions of this paper, correcting errors or extending the argument, will be made available on socialanalysis.org

Keywords: Millennium Development Goals; poverty; purchasing power parities (PPPs); world poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B41 C80 D31 D63 I32 O10 O19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2009-12
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:une:wpaper:79

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