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New perspectives on a more-or-less familiar poverty index

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Abstract

In this article, we examine some properties and extensions of a particular poverty index, which is already passingly familiar to poverty analysts. Our investigation leads to a new perspective on the family of additively decomposable and scale-invariant poverty indices and provides new insights into the class of poverty measures proposed by Foster et al. (Econometrica 52:761–766, 1984). Finally, our work leads to a clarification of the different roles of transfer properties and distribution sensitivity in poverty measurement.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Maastricht University, Tongersestraat 53, 6211 LM, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Kristof Bosmans

  2. School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK

    Lucio Esposito

  3. Department of Economics, 1285 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 97403-1285, USA

    Peter Lambert

Authors
  1. Kristof Bosmans
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  2. Lucio Esposito
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  3. Peter Lambert
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lucio Esposito.

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Bosmans, K., Esposito, L. & Lambert, P. New perspectives on a more-or-less familiar poverty index. Soc Choice Welf 36, 241–247 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-010-0473-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-010-0473-6

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