Fuzzy conceptualization of privation has been a step closer to more realistic handling of poverty. However, fuzzy approaches to poverty are still grounded on parametric axioms. Moreover, construction of poverty lines within these approaches still relies on ad-hoc methods. In this paper, we advance instead a fuzzy procedure based on the non-parametric bootstrap method, allowing us to depict fuzzy unidimensional privation states with boundaries drawn spontaneously from data. Fuzzy nonparametric measures of privation within each state as well as a collective fuzzy non-parametric index of poverty are derived, along with their corresponding confidence intervals. The new approach is applied to the analysis of poverty in Tunisia in 2005.
JEL Code: I32
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.