Abstract
We propose a characterization of a popular index of multidimensional poverty which, as a special case, generates a measure of material deprivation. This index is the weighted sum of the functioning failures. The important feature of the variables that may be relevant for poverty assessments is that they are discrete in nature. Thus, poverty measures based on continuous variables are not suitable in this setting and the assumption of a discrete domain is mandatory. We apply the measure to European Union member states where the concept of material deprivation was initiated and illustrate how its recommendations differ from those obtained from poverty measures based exclusively on income considerations.
This chapter is a reprint of an article published in Review of Income and Wealth, volume 59, 2013. Generous consent of John Wiley & Sons is acknowledged wholeheartedly.
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Acknowledgements
We thank two referees for useful suggestions as well as the Fondazione Debenedetti for providing access to the dataset. Financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada is gratefully acknowledged.
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Bossert, W., Chakravarty, S.R., D’Ambrosio, C. (2019). Multidimensional Poverty and Material Deprivation with Discrete Data. In: Chakravarty, S. (eds) Poverty, Social Exclusion and Stochastic Dominance. Themes in Economics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3432-0_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3432-0_12
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