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Counting the poor: an elementary difficulty in the measurement of proverty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2003

S. Subramanian
Affiliation:
Madras Institute of Development Studies

Abstract

This note suggests that the exercise of measuring poverty in a society is greatly aided by clarity on precisely what one means by “the extent of poverty”. The latter concept may refer to the extent of poverty normalized for population size, or to the extent of poverty not so normalized. Absence of clarity on this distinction – which is both simple and non-trivial – could lead to rather straightforward problems of coherence and consistency in the measurement of poverty.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

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