Measuring Global Poverty: Why PPP Methods Matter

Ackland, Robert; Dowrick, Steve; Freyens, Benoit

doi:10.1162/rest_a_00294

Cited by 49 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 27 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Another issue which can impact on the measurement of poverty is the choice of PPP exchange rates. The computational method used by the World Bank addresses the problem of bias induced by fixed‐weight index number systems such as the Geary‐Khamis method (see Ackland et al ., ). However, it has been criticised for using expenditure shares from national accounts.…”

Section: Data and Estimationmentioning

confidence: 97%

Calculating Poverty Measures from the Generalised Beta Income Distribution

et al. 2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Data for measuring poverty are frequently available in a summary form that describes the proportion of income or expenditure for each of a number of population proportions. While various discrete poverty measures can be applied directly to data in this limited form, they typically require an arbitrary approach to within‐group interpolation. This problem can be overcome by fitting either a parametric income distribution or a Lorenz curve to the grouped data and computing the required quantities from estimated parameters. The Lorenz curve approach is widely used by the World Bank, but can encounter problems. As an alternative, in this article we show how to calculate several poverty measures from parameters of the generalized beta income distribution, and its popular special cases. An analysis of poverty changes in countries from South and Southeast Asia is used to illustrate the methodology.

show abstract

Section: Data and Estimationmentioning

confidence: 97%

Calculating Poverty Measures from the Generalised Beta Income Distribution

et al. 2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Data for income inequality are taken from the standardized income inequality dataset (WIID) of the World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER). This dataset has been used extensively in the literature (see Ackland et al 2013 andRoope et al 2017), and is widely regarded as the most reliable data on inequality for developing (and developed) countries. We use Net Ginis, which measure net per capita income inequality in a country in a given year.…”

Section: Patterns Of Structural Transformation and Inequalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Was Kuznets right?: New evidence on the relationship between structural transformation and inequality

Baymul¹,

Sen²

2019

WIDER Working Paper

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract:We examine the Kuznets postulate that structural transformation leads to higher inequality using comparable panel data for a large number of developing and developed countries for 1960-2012. Countries are in different stages of structural transformation, being either structurally under-developed, structurally developing or structurally developed. In contrast to the Kuznets hypothesis, we find that the movement of workers to manufacturing unambiguously decreases income inequality, irrespective of the stage of structural transformation that a particular country is in. We also find that the movement of workers into services has a positive impact on inequality across our set of countries at an early stage of structural transformation and a negative effect at a later stage, suggesting that the Kuznets postulate may apply more for services driven structural transformation than manufacturing driven structural transformation. Overall, our findings confirm the positive development effects that structural transformation relating to manufacturing may have in developing countries, not merely through higher growth but by reducing inequality as well. However, for many low-income countries, where the realistic possibility of structural transformation may be the movement of workers from agriculture to services, our findings suggest that inequality may increase with further structural transformation.

show abstract

“…Table 1 looks at convergence towards the level of Germany, which is generally considered Europe's most competitive, albeit not its richest, economy. The Table uses EKS data instead of the GK data employed by Gill and Raiser because the GK method overstates the income levels of poorer countries (Ackland, Dowrick & Freyens, 2013). As emerges from Table 1, the favourable performance of Western Europe and Ireland was not repeated by the Southern and Eastern members that joined after the 1970s.…”

Section: Convergence In Europe and East Asiamentioning

confidence: 99%

The EU's Convergence Dilemma

Notermans

2015

Baltic Journal of European Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

As economic stagnation continues to mark the EU in the fifth year of the euro zone crisis, political support for integration is waning. The European Parliament elections of 2014 returned a hitherto unparalleled number of Eurosceptic MEPs, with EU-critical parties becoming the largest ones in several Member States. Much of this Euroscepticism is driven by economic polarisation between core and peripheral countries. While an increasing number of voters in the northwestern creditor countries resent having to foot the bill for what they consider economic mismanagement in the periphery, voters in peripheral countries increasingly rebel against what they deem to be an economically catastrophic Diktat from Germany and its allies. Continued political support for European integration will hinge on successful income convergence in the EU but the current dilemma is that such policies might not be politically feasible. Periods of rapid convergence would seem to suggest that success depends on two main policy strategies. First, a monetary policy that promotes credit for productive purposes, leaves inflation control to other instruments, and employs selective credit rationing to prevent asset booms. Second, a vertical industrial policy prioritising selected industrial sectors. The first policy conflicts with the present framework of euro zone monetary policy, but that framework was only installed in the first place because many peripheral countries were desperately in search of an external constraint on domestic distributional conflict. Industrial policies, in turn, require a sufficient degree of state autonomy from business elites in order to be effective, but it is highly questionable whether most states in the EU possess such autonomy. Though there are, as yet hesitant, signs of a reorientation of both monetary and cohesion policy in the EU, the question of the institutional and political preconditions for their successful implementation has been largely neglected.

show abstract

Measuring Global Poverty: Why PPP Methods Matter

Cited by 49 publications

References 27 publications

Calculating Poverty Measures from the Generalised Beta Income Distribution

Calculating Poverty Measures from the Generalised Beta Income Distribution

Was Kuznets right?: New evidence on the relationship between structural transformation and inequality

The EU's Convergence Dilemma

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About