Abstract
This essay subjects to criticism the dominant convention in the inequality- and poverty-measurement literature of employing wholly ‘relative’ indices and advocates, instead, the routine use of ‘centrist’ measures. In the process, the paper revisits some old debates on the logical adequacy and normative appeal of measures of inequality and poverty that are either wholly relative or wholly absolute. The implication of these issues for the diagnosis of magnitudes and trends in inequality and poverty is illustrated by means of a couple of simple empirical examples drawn from Indian data.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Ahluwalia, M. S. (2011). Prospects and policy challenges in the twelfth plan. Economic and Political Weekly, XLVI, 21, 88–105.
Bhalla, S. S. (2011). Inclusion and growth in India: Some facts, some conclusions. LSE Asia Research Centre Working Paper 39.
Bhagwati, J. (2011). Indian reforms: Yesterday and today. In P. S. Mehta & B. Chatterjee (Eds.) Growth and Poverty: The Great Debate. Jaipur: Cuts International.
Dalton, H. (1924). The measurement of the inequality of incomes. The Economic Journal, 30(119), 348–361.
Foster, J. E., Greer, J., & Thorbecke, E. (1984). A class of decomposable poverty measures. Econometrica, 52(3), 761–766.
Kolm, S Ch. (1976a). Unequal inequalities I. Journal of Economic Theory, 12(3), 416–454.
Kolm, S Ch. (1976b). Unequal inequalities II. Journal of Economic Theory, 13(1), 82–111.
Moyes, P. (1987). A new concept of lorenz domination. Economics Letters, 23(2), 203–207.
Planning Commission. (2009).Report of the expert group to review the methodology for estimation of poverty. Government of India: New Delhi.
Srinivasan, T. N. (2017). Planning, poverty and political economy of reforms: A tribute to Suresh D. Tendulkar. In K. L. Krishna, V. Pandit, K. Sundaram & P. Dua (Eds.), Perspectives on Economic Policy and Development in India: In Honour of Suresh Tendulkar, Springer: Delhi.
Subramanian, S. (2002). Counting the poor: An elementary difficulty in the measurement of poverty. Economics and Philosophy, 277–285.
Subramanian, S. (2018). On Comprehensively intermediate measures of inequality and poverty, with an illustrative application to global data. Journal of Globalization and Development. https://doi.org/10.1515/jgd-2017-0027.
Subramanian, S., & Lalvani, M. (2018). Poverty, growth, inequality: Some general and India-specific considerations. Indian Growth and Development Review, 11(2), 136–151.
Temkin, L. (1993). Inequality. Clarendon: Oxford University Press.
Townsend, P. (1979). The development of research on poverty’, in department of health and social security: Social security research: The definition and measurement of poverty. London: HMSO.
Zheng, B. (2007). Unit-consistent poverty indices. Economic Theory, 31(1), 113–142.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Subramanian, S. (2020). Revisiting an Old Theme in the Measurement of Inequality and Poverty. In: Saleth, R., Galab, S., Revathi, E. (eds) Issues and Challenges of Inclusive Development. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2229-1_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2229-1_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-15-2228-4
Online ISBN: 978-981-15-2229-1
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)