Understandings and Misunderstandings of Multidimensional Poverty Measurement

James Foster () and Sabina Alkire

Working Papers from The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy

Abstract: Multidimensional measures provide an alternative lens through which poverty may be viewed and understood. In recent work we have attempted to offer a practical approach to identifying the poor and measuring aggregate poverty (Alkire and Foster 2011). As this is quite a departure from traditional unidimensional and multidimensional poverty measurement - particularly with respect to the identification step - further elaboration may be warranted. In this paper we elucidate the strengths, limitations, and misunderstandings of multidimensional poverty measurement in order to clarify the debate and catalyse further research. We begin with general definitions of unidimensional and multidimensional methodologies for measuring poverty. We provide an intuitive description of our measurement approach, including a 'dual cutoff' identification step that views poverty as the state of being multiply deprived, and an aggregation step based on the traditional FGT measures. We briefly discuss five characteristics of our methodology that are easily overlooked or mistaken and conclude with some brief remarks on the way forward.

Keywords: poverty measurement; multidimensional poverty; deprivation; FGT measures; decomposability; joint distribution; axioms. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 I3 I32 O1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2011-05
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (175)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Understandings and misunderstandings of multidimensional poverty measurement (2011)
Working Paper: Understandings and Misunderstandings of Multidimensional Poverty Measurement (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gwi:wpaper:2011-18

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