Who is not Poor? Proposing a Higher International Standard for Poverty

Lant Pritchett

No 33, Working Papers from Center for Global Development

Abstract: Poverty reduction is now, and quite properly should remain, the primary objective of the World Bank. But, when the World Bank dreams of a world free of poverty—what should it be dreaming? I argue in this essay that the dream should be a bold one, that treats citizens of all nations equally in defining poverty, and that sets a high standard for what eliminating poverty will mean for human well-being. I propose a new standard for global income poverty for the World Bank’s use. This poverty line is the weighted average of the poverty lines declared by its shareholders, where the declared poverty line is no lower than the country uses for its own citizens. I show this will imply a poverty line of around U.S.$15 a day in current purchasing power adjusted currency units—about ten times higher than the existing standard.

Keywords: poverty; World Bank; human well-being (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F33 F34 F35 I31 I32 O15 O19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 55 pages
Date: 2003-11
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cgd:wpaper:33

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