IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cgd/wpaper/262.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Multidimensional Indices of Achievements and Poverty: What Do We Gain and What Do We Lose? - Working Paper 262

Author

Listed:
  • Nora Lustig

Abstract

Poverty and well-being are multidimensional. Nobody questions that deprivations and achievements go beyond income. There is, however, sharp disagreement on whether the various dimensions of poverty and well-being can be aggregated into a single, multidimensional index in a meaningful way. Is aggregating dimensions of poverty and well-being useful? Is it sensible? Here CGD non-resident fellow Nora Lustig summarizes and contrasts three key papers that respond to these questions in strikingly different ways. At the bottom of the discussion is a fundamental disagreement on the “legitimacy” of the weights used to aggregate dimensions of well-being. Future research will need to focus on how to identify weights in ways that are consistent 1) with welfare economics and 2) with theories of justice. Will we have to choose between the two?

Suggested Citation

  • Nora Lustig, 2011. "Multidimensional Indices of Achievements and Poverty: What Do We Gain and What Do We Lose? - Working Paper 262," Working Papers 262, Center for Global Development.
    • Handle: RePEc:cgd:wpaper:262
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1425366
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bénédicte Apouey & David Madden, 2023. "Health poverty," Chapters, in: Jacques Silber (ed.), Research Handbook on Measuring Poverty and Deprivation, chapter 19, pages 202-211, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Bucheli, José R. & Bohara, Alok K. & Villa, Kira, 2016. "The Impact of a Rural Road Development Project on Multidimensional Poverty in Nepal," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235214, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Olu Ajakaiye & Afeikhena T. Jerome & Olanrewaju Olaniyan & Kristi Mahrt & Olufunke A. Alaba, 2014. "Multidimensional Poverty in Nigeria: First Order Dominance Approach," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2014-143, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Francisco H. G. Ferreira & Maria Ana Lugo, 2013. "Multidimensional Poverty Analysis: Looking for a Middle Ground," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 28(2), pages 220-235, August.
    5. Francisco Ferreira, 2011. "Poverty is multidimensional. But what are we going to do about it?," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(3), pages 493-495, September.
    6. Fanny Minjauw & Md Rasheduzzaman & Philipp Baumgartner & Peter Dorward & Graham Clarkson & Alasdair Cohen, 2024. "Perceptions of poverty: Evaluating Multidimensional Poverty Assessment Tool derived rankings and global development indicators in five African nations," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(3), pages 1832-1847, April.
    7. Akarsh Arora & Sukhpal Singh, 2022. "Questioning the poverty line aggregation approach in India: Issues of mismatches and overlaps," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(2), pages 117-136, June.
    8. Espinoza-Delgado, José & Klasen, Stephan, 2018. "Gender and multidimensional poverty in Nicaragua: An individual based approach," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 466-491.
    9. Nadia von Jacobi, 2018. "Institutions as Meso-factors of Development: A Human Development Perspective," Journal of Contextual Economics (JCE) – Schmollers Jahrbuch, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 138(1), pages 53-88.
    10. Jamshed Y. Uppal & Syeda Rabab Mudakkar, 2013. "Human Development and Economic Uncertainties: Exploring Another Dimension of Development," Lahore Journal of Economics, Department of Economics, The Lahore School of Economics, vol. 18(Special E), pages 305-334, September.
    11. Sung-Geun Kim, 2023. "What can we talk about social cohesion in Korea? An item response theory approach," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 2409-2427, June.
    12. Bronfman, Javier, 2014. "Beyond Income: A Study of Multidimensional Poverty in Chile," MPRA Paper 63256, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Ajakaiye, Olu & Jerome, Afeikhena T. & Olaniyan, Olanrewaju & Mahrt, Kristi & Alaba, Olufunke A., 2014. "Multidimensional poverty in Nigeria: First order dominance approach," WIDER Working Paper Series 143, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. David Madden, 2015. "Health and Wealth on the Roller-Coaster: Ireland, 2003–2011," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 121(2), pages 387-412, April.
    15. Bruno Cheli & Achille Lemmi & Nicoletta Pannuzi & Andrea Regoli, 2019. "From the TFR to the IFR approach for the multidimensional analysis of poverty and living conditions," Discussion Papers 2019/252, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    poverty measurement; multidimensional poverty; deprivation; axioms; Human Development Index; capabilities; substitutability; trade-offs; welfare; country classifications;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cgd:wpaper:262. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Publications Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cgdevus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.