From: Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [PEN-L:32777] Counting the poor
Date: Thu, 05 Dec 2002 10:30:35 -0500
HOW NOT TO COUNT THE POOR
Sanjay G. Reddy and Thomas W. Pogge
Abstract: The estimates of the extent, distribution and trend of global
income poverty provided in the World Bank's World Development Reports for
1990 and 2000/01 are neither meaningful nor reliable. The Bank uses an
arbitrary international poverty line unrelated to any clear conception of
what poverty is. It employs a misleading and inaccurate measure of
purchasing power "equivalence" that creates serious and irreparable
difficulties for international and intertemporal comparisons of income
poverty. It extrapolates incorrectly from limited data and thereby creates
an appearance of precision that masks the high probable error of its
estimates. The systematic distortion introduced by these three flaws likely
leads to a large understatement of the extent of global income poverty and
to an incorrect inference that it has declined. A new methodology of global
poverty assessment is feasible and necessary.
Full: http://www.columbia.edu/~sr793/count.pdf
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