Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/81018 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 2012/53
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
The present paper is a selective overview, very considerably based on work in which the author himself has been involved, of the difficulties which can arise in the measurement of poverty and inequality when one compares populations of differing size. The paper begins with certain problems attending the measurement of poverty when the overall population size is fixed but the numbers of the poor are permitted to vary: one discovers a certain commonality of outcomes between Derek Parfit's quest for a satisfactory theory of wellbeing and the economist's quest for a satisfactory measure of poverty. Complications arising from both the poverty and inequality rankings of distributions when the aggregate size of the population is allowed to vary are also investigated. It is suggested in the paper that, from the perspectives of both logical consistency and ethical appeal, there are problems involved in variable population comparisons of poverty and inequality which deserve to be taken note of and enquired into.
Subjects: 
poverty
inequality
total principle
average principle
fixed population axioms
variable population axioms
impossibility theorems
JEL: 
I30
I32
J19
O15
ISBN: 
978-92-9230-516-1
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
218.37 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.