Bottom Incomes and the Measurement of Poverty: A Brief Assessment of the Literature

Arbeitspapier

The paper discusses the main issues related to negative and zero incomes that are relevant for the measurement of poverty. It shows the prevalence of non-positive incomes in high- and middle-income countries, provides an analysis of the sources and structure of these incomes, outlines the various approaches proposed by scholars and statistical agencies to treat non-positive incomes, and explains how non-positive incomes and alternative correction methods impact the measurement of standard poverty indexes. It is argued that negative and zero incomes cannot be treated equally in terms of household well-being and that standard methods used by practitioners fail to recognize this fact likely resulting in overestimations of poverty.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: GLO Discussion Paper ; No. 914

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions ; Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement ; Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
• Subject: Welfare measurement ; Well-being ; Poverty targeting ; High- and middle-income countries ; Survey non-response ; Negative incomes ; Zero incomes ; Extreme income corrections

Contributors, Location and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Ceriani, Lidia ; Hlasny, Vladimir ; Verme, Paolo
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Global Labor Organization (GLO)
• (where): Essen
• (when): 2021

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/237379
• Last update: 20.09.2024, 8:26 AM CEST