Key Readings

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Data on poverty

• Human Development Reports
• World Development Report 2000/2001: Attacking Poverty
• "Are Poverty Reduction and Other 21st Century Social Goals Attainable?,"by Demery, L. and M. Walton, 1998.
• See also our page dedicated to Data on Poverty.

Measuring and Analyzing Poverty

• Atkinson, A. B. and F. Bourguignon (1982), ”The Comparison of Multi-Dimensioned Distributions of Economic Status”, Review of Economic Studies, Vol XLIX, p. 183-201.
• Bidani, B. and M. Ravallion (1994), How Robust is a Poverty Profile, World Bank Economic Review 8, pp. 75-102.
• Christiansen, L. and Boisvert, R. N. (2000), ‘On Measuring Household Food Vulnerability: Case Evidence from Northern Mali’, Department of Agricultural, Resource, and Managerial Economics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 2000-05.
• Coudouel, Aline, Jesko Hentschel and Quentin Wodon (2002), Poverty Measurement and Analysis, in the PRSP Sourcebook, World Bank, Washington D.C.
• Cowell, F. (1995), Measuring Inequality, London. Prentice Hall.
• Datt, G., and M. Ravallion (1992), “Growth and Redistribution Components of Changes in Poverty Measures: A Decomposition with Applications to Brazil and India in the 1980's” Journal of Development Economics 38:275–95.
• Deaton, Angus (1997), The Analysis of Household Surveys: A Microeconometric Approach to Development Policy, Johns Hopkins University Press, World Bank, Washinton D.C.
• Deaton, A. and S. Zaidi (2002), A Guide to Aggregating Consumption Expenditures, Living Standards Measurement Study, Working Paper 135. Also in Russian.
• Foster, J.E., J. Greer, E. Thorbecke (1984), A Class of Decomposable Poverty Indices, Econometrica 52, pp.761-766.
• Gacitua-Mario, E., and Q. Wodon (Eds) (2001), Measurement and Meaning; Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Methods for the Analysis of Poverty and Social Exclusion in Latin America, World Bank Technical Paper 518, Washington, D.C.
• Goedhart, T. V. Harberstadt, A. Kapteyn and B.M.S. van Praag (1977), ‘The poverty line: concept and measurement’, Journal of Human Resources, Vol 12, No. 4, pp. 503-520.
• Hentschel, J. and P. Lanjouw (1996), Constructing an Indicator of Consumption for the Analysis of Poverty, World Bank Living Standard Measurement Study 124, Washington, DC.
• Hentschel, J., J. O. Lanjouw, P. Lanjouw, and J. Poggi (2000).  “Combining Census and Survey Data to Trace the Spatial Dimension of Poverty: A Case Study of Ecuador,” The World Bank Economic Review, 14 (1).
• Hentschel, Jesko and Radha Seshagiri (2000), The City Poverty Assessment: A Primer, The World Bank, Washington D.C.
• Howes, Stephen R. and Jea Olson Lanjouw (1997), Poverty Comparisons and Household Survey Design, Living Standards Measurement Study Working Paper 129, World Bank, Washington D.C.
• Jalan, J. and Ravallion, M. (1998), “Determinants of Transient and Chronic Poverty: Evidence from Rural China”,World Bank, Policy Research Working Paper No. 1936.
• Lanjouw, P. and M. Ravallion (1995), “Poverty and Household Size.” Economic Journal; 105: 1415-34.
• Lanjouw, Jean O. and Peter Lanjouw (1997) "Poverty Comparisons with Noncompatible Data," The World Bank: Washinton D.C.
• Lanjouw, Peter and Martin Ravallion (1996) "How Should we Assess Poverty Using Data from Different Surveys," Poverty Lines Newsletter, September 1996, The World Bank: Washington D.C.
• Litchfield, J. (1999), Inequality Methods and Tools, STICERD, London School of Economics, March. 
• Pradhan, M. and M. Ravallion (1998), “Measuring Poverty Using Qualitative Perceptions of Welfare.”  World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 2011, Washington, DC.
• Pritchett, L., Suryahadi, A., and Sumarto, S. (2000), ”Quantifying Vulnerability to Poverty: A Proposed Measure, Applied to Indonesia”,World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 2437.
• Ravallion, Martin (2003) The Debate on Globalization, Poverty and Inequality: Why Measurement Matter?, Policy Research Working Paper 3038, World Bank: Washington D.C.
• Ravallion, Martin (2001), Measuring Aggregate Welfare in Developing Countries: How well do national accounts and surveys agree?,Policy Research Working Paper 2665, World Bank: Washington D.C.
• Ravallion, Martin (1998), Poverty Lines in Theory and Practice, Living Standards Measurement Study Working Paper 133, World Bank, Washington DC.
• Ravallion, Martin (1996), "Issues in Measuring and Modeling Poverty", Economic Journal, Vol. 106, September 1996, pp. 1328-44.
• Ravallion, Martin (1994), Poverty Comparisons, Fundamentals of Pure and Applied Economics Volume 56, Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers.
• Ravallion, Martin (1992), Poverty Comparisons, A Guide to Concepts and Methods, Living Standards Measurement Study, Working Paper 88, World Bank, Washington D.C. See also French version.
• Sala-i-Martin, Xavier (2002) "The World Distribution of Income (Estimated from Individual Country Distribution)," National Bureau of Economic Research: May 2002.
• Salmen, L. (1995), Beneficiary Assessments: An Approach Described, ESD Discussion Papers 23, World Bank, Washington D.C.

Measuring and Analyzing Inequality

• Amiel, Y., 1998, "The Subjective Approach to the Measurement of Income Inequality" in Silber, J. (ed) Income Inequality Measurement: From Theory to Practice, Kluwer, Dewenter.
• Atkinson, A.B., 1970, "On the Measurement of Inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, 2: 244-63.
• Atkinson, A.B., 1983, The Economics of Inequality, 2nd edition, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
• Bourguignon, F., 1979, "Decomposable Income Inequality Measures", Econometrica, 47: 901-20.
• Cowell, F.A., 2008,  Measuring Inequality. Oxford University Press.
• Cowell, F.A., 1999, "Measurement of Inequality" in Atkinson, A.B. and F. Bourguignon (eds) Handbook of Income Distribution, North Holland, Amsterdam.
• Cowell, F.A. and S.P. Jenkins, 1995, "How Much Inequality Can We Explain? A Methodology and an Application to the USA", Economic Journal, 105: 421-30.
• Dalton, H., 1920, "The Measurement of the Inequality of Incomes", Economic Journal, 30: 348-61.
• Deaton, A., 1997, The Analysis of Household Surveys: A Microeconometric Approach to Development Policy. The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
• Fields, G.S., 1980, Poverty, Inequality and Development, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
• Foster, J., J.Greer and E.Thorbecke, 1984, "A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures", Econometrica 52: 761-5.
• OECD, 1995, Income Distribution in OECD Countries: Evidence from the Luxembourg Income Study, OECD, Paris.
• Saposnik, R., 1981, "Rank-Dominance in Income Distribution" Public Choice, 36 pp147-151.
• Saposnik, R., 1983, "On Evaluating Income Distributions: Rank Dominance, the Suppes-Sen Grading Principle of Justice and Pareto Optimality", Public Choice, 40: 329-36.
• Sen, A.K., 1973, On Economic Inequality, Oxford University Press, London.
• Sen A.K., 1976, "Poverty: An Ordinal Approach to Measurement" Econometrica, 44.
• Shorrocks, A.F., 1983, "Inequality Decomposition by Factor Components", Econometrica, 50: 193-212.
• Shorrocks, A.F., 1982b, "The Impact of Income Components on the Distribution of Family Incomes", Quarterly Journal of Economics, 98: 311-26.
• Shorrocks A.F., 1983, "Ranking Income Distributions", Economica, 50: 3-17.
• Shorrocks, A. F., 1984, "Inequality Decomposition by Population Subgroup", Econometrica, 52: 1369-85.
• Theil, H., 1979, "The Measurement of Inequality by Components of Income", Economics Letters, 2: 197-9.
• Yitzhaki, S. and R.I. Lerman, 1991, "Income Stratification and Income Inequality", Review of Income and Wealth, 37: 313-329.
• Zellner, A., 1962, "An Efficient Method of Estimating Seemingly Unrelated Regressions and Tests for Aggregation Bias", Journal of the American Statistical Association, 57: 346-368.

Software/Tools

The software packages below can be used to carry out projections and simulations. These tools use both grouped consumption (or income) data and unit record data from household surveys. They vary by the type and complexity of the analyses they can perform.

• POVCAL -a DOS-based program that can be used to simulate what happens to poverty indicators when consumption increases by a certain amount, with or without changes in inequality.
• SimSIP Poverty- an Excel based program that enables the user to make poverty and inequality comparisons between sectors and over time.
• DAD- a Software for Distributive Analysis designed to facilitate the analysis and the comparisons of social welfare, inequality, poverty, and equity across distributions of standard living.
• PovSTAT- an Excel based program that produces forecasts that vary by level of complexity depending on the availability of reliable data for the post survey period and on the extent to which various factors influencing poverty levels are incorporated. You will find a chapter describing the tool, as well as a file with the program itself.

Mapping Poverty

• Deichmann, Uwe.  "Geographic Aspects of Inequality and Poverty."World Bank. January 1999.
• Henninger, Norbert (1998). “Mapping and Geographic Analysis of Poverty and Human Welfare – Review and Assessment.”Report prepared for the UNEP/CGIAR Initiative on GIS, World Resources Institute, Washington, D.C.
• Henninger, Norbert and Mathilde Snel (2002)  Where are the Poor?: Experiences with the Development and Use of Poverty Maps. World Resources Institute.
• Hetschel, Jesko and Peter Lanjouw (1998).    "Using Disaggregated Poverty Maps to Plan Sectoral Investments." PREM Notes. The World Bank.
• Lanjouw, Peter, Berk Özler (2002). "Poverty on the Map."

» More Document and Links 

Guidance on Poverty Assessments

• Operational Policy 1.00: Poverty Reduction
• Guidance Note on Poverty Assessments

Training Materials

• Learning materials from the World Bank Institute

Related Sections:

• See Country Documents for country-specific readings.
• See Training Events and Materials for key presentations.

For readings on related topics, see:

• Key Readings under Poverty monitoring
• Key Readings under Impact Evaluations
• Country Documents under Poverty monitoring
• Country Documents under Impact Evaluations

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