IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/restat/v87y2005i1p1-19.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring Poverty in a Growing World (or Measuring Growth in a Poor World)

Author

Listed:
  • Angus Deaton

    (Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University)

Abstract

The extent to which growth reduces global poverty has been disputed for 30 years. Although there are better data than ever before, controversies are not resolved. A major problem is that consumption measured from household surveys, which is used to measure poverty, grows less rapidly than consumption measured in national accounts, in the world as a whole and in large countries, particularly India, China, and the United States. In consequence, measured poverty has fallen less rapidly than appears warranted by measured growth in poor countries. One plausible cause is that richer households are less likely to participate in surveys. But growth in the national accounts is also upward biased, and consumption in the national accounts contains large and rapidly growing items that are not consumed by the poor and not included in surveys. So it is possible for consumption of the poor to grow less rapidly than national consumption, without any increase in measured inequality. Current statistical procedures in poor countries understate the rate of global poverty reduction, and overstate growth in the world. © 2005 President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Suggested Citation

  • Angus Deaton, 2005. "Measuring Poverty in a Growing World (or Measuring Growth in a Poor World)," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(1), pages 1-19, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:87:y:2005:i:1:p:1-19
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/0034653053327612
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Harry X. Wu, 2000. "China'S Gdp Level And Growth Performance: Alternative Estimates And The Implications," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 46(4), pages 475-499, December.
    2. Mistiaen, Johan A. & Ravallion, Martin, 2003. "Survey compliance and the distribution of income," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2956, The World Bank.
    3. Deininger, Klaus & Squire, Lyn, 1996. "A New Data Set Measuring Income Inequality," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 10(3), pages 565-591, September.
    4. Martin Ravallion, 2003. "Measuring Aggregate Welfare in Developing Countries: How Well Do National Accounts and Surveys Agree?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(3), pages 645-652, August.
    5. Angus Deaton and Jean Drèze & Jean Drèze, 2002. "Poverty and Inequality in India: A Reexamination," Working papers 107, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    6. Deininger, Klaus & Squire, Lyn, 1996. "A New Data Set Measuring Income Inequality," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 10(3), pages 565-591, September.
    7. repec:bla:revinw:v:46:y:2000:i:4:p:475-99 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2001. "The disturbing 'rise' of global income inequality," Economics Working Papers 616, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Apr 2002.
    9. Mr. Andrew Berg & Anne O. Krueger, 2003. "Trade, Growth, and Poverty: A Selective Survey," IMF Working Papers 2003/030, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Keidel, Albert, 2001. "China's GDP expenditure accounts," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 355-367.
    11. Fishlow, Albert, 1972. "Brazilian Size Distribution of Income," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(2), pages 391-402, May.
    12. Lance Taylor & Edmar L. Bacha, 1976. "The Unequalizing Spiral: A First Growth Model for Belindia," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 90(2), pages 197-218.
    13. Ravallion, Martin, 2001. "Growth, Inequality and Poverty: Looking Beyond Averages," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(11), pages 1803-1815, November.
    14. Ahluwalia, Montek S, et al, 1980. "Who Benefits from Economic Development? Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(1), pages 242-245, March.
    15. Rawski, Thomas G., 2001. "What is happening to China's GDP statistics?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 347-354.
    16. Cline, William R., 1975. "Distribution and development : A survey of literature," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(4), pages 359-400, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thierry Verdier, 2005. "Intégration commerciale « socialement responsable » : une approche en termes d'économie politique," Revue d’économie du développement, De Boeck Université, vol. 13(4), pages 55-121.
    2. Francois, Joseph & Rojas-Romagosa, Hugo, 2005. "The Construction and Interpretation of Combined Cross-Section and Time-Series Inequality Datasets," CEPR Discussion Papers 5214, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4459 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Charlotte Guénard & Sandrine Mesplé-Somps, 2004. "Measuring inequalities: Do the surveys give the real picture? Study of two surveys in Cote d’Ivoire and Madagascar," Working Papers DT/2004/13, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation), revised Dec 2004.
    5. Meng, Xin & Gregory, Robert & Wang, Youjuan, 2005. "Poverty, inequality, and growth in urban China, 1986-2000," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 710-729, December.
    6. Heshmati, Almas, 2004. "The World Distribution of Income and Income Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 1267, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Meschi, Elena & Vivarelli, Marco, 2009. "Trade and Income Inequality in Developing Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 287-302, February.
    8. Ayal Kimhi, 2004. "Growth, Inequality and Labor Markets in LDCs: A Survey," CESifo Working Paper Series 1281, CESifo.
    9. Radwan Shaban & Hiromi Asoaka & Bob Barnes & Vladimir Drebentsov & John Langenbrunner & Sajaia Zurab & James Stevens & David Tarr & Emil Tesliuc & Olga Shabalina & Ruslan Yemtsov, 2006. "Reducing Poverty through Growth and Social Policy Reform in Russia," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6955.
    10. repec:pri:rpdevs:deaton_how_to_monitor_poverty_for_the_millennium_development_goals_jhd.pd is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Rivera, Sandra A. & Tsigas, Marinos E., 2005. "How does China’s growth affect India? An Economywide Analysis," Conference papers 331359, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    12. Svedberg, Peter, 2003. "World Income Distribution: Which Way?," Seminar Papers 724, Stockholm University, Institute for International Economic Studies.
    13. Angus Deaton, 2003. "Data for monitoring the poverty MDG," Human Development Occasional Papers (1992-2007) HDOCPA-2003-02, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    14. Alvaredo, Facundo & Bourguignon, François & Ferreira, Francisco H. G. & Lustig, Nora, 2023. "Seventy-five Years of Measuring Income Inequality in Latin America," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 13157, Inter-American Development Bank.
    15. Nancy Birdsall, 2008. "Income Distribution: Effects on Growth and Development," Chapters, in: Amitava Krishna Dutt & Jaime Ros (ed.), International Handbook of Development Economics, Volumes 1 & 2, volume 0, chapter 48, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Bas van Leeuwen & Peter Foldvari, 2012. "The development of inequality and poverty in Indonesia, 1932-1999," Working Papers 0026, Utrecht University, Centre for Global Economic History.
    17. Alessandra Bonfiglioli, 2004. "Equities and Inequality," 2004 Meeting Papers 256, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    18. Bonfiglioli, Alessandra, 2012. "Investor protection and income inequality: Risk sharing vs risk taking," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 92-104.
    19. Mohsen Bahmani‐Oskooee & Mehrnoosh Hasanzade, 2022. "Policy uncertainty and income distribution: Asymmetric evidence from state‐level data in the United States," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(1), pages 179-220, January.
    20. Ligon, Ethan, 2006. "Poverty and the welfare costs of risk associated with globalization," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1446-1457, August.
    21. Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2002. "The World Distribution of Income (estimated from Individual Country Distributions)," NBER Working Papers 8933, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Meschi, Elena & Vivarelli, Marco, 2007. "Globalization and Income Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 2958, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty

    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:tpr:restat:v:87:y:2005:i:1:p:1-19. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    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.