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UNU-WIDER A Re-scaled Version of the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke Poverty Indices based on an Association with the Minkowski Distance Function

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A teenager wears torn rubber boots in a muddy local market in Bac Ha, Viet Nam. As of 2005 figures, half the world population—more than 3 billion people–is estimated to live on less than USD 2.50 a day. Bac Ha, Viet Nam. UN Photo/Kibae Park.

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A Re-scaled Version of the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke Poverty Indices based on an Association with the Minkowski Distance Function

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This note advances a family of poverty measures, Πα, which are derived as simple, normalized Minkowski distance functions. The Πα indices turn out to be the αth roots of the corresponding Foster, Greer and Thorbecke Pα indices. The re-calibration of Pα terms of Πα could have certain possible advantages, which are reviewed in the note. While the Πα indices are not decomposable in the ordinarily understood sense of that term, they are amenable to the completely general decomposition procedure advanced by Shorrocks (‘Decomposition Procedures for Distributional Analysis: A Unified Framework Based on the Shapley Value’) and discussed, here, as an application in the poverty context.
Publisher:
UNU-WIDER
Series:
WIDER Research Paper
Volume:
2004/10
Title:
A Re-scaled Version of the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke Poverty Indices based on an Association with the Minkowski Distance Function
Authors:
S. Subramanian
Publication date:
2004
ISSN Web:
1810-2611
ISBN Web:
9291905895
ISBN 13 Web:
9789291905898
Copyright holder:
© UNU-WIDER
Copyright year:
2004
Keywords:
poverty measures, decomposition
JEL:
I13
Sponsor:
UNU-WIDER acknowledges the financial contributions to the research programme by the governments of Denmark (Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Finland (Ministry for Foreign Affairs), Norway (Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Sweden (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency-Sida) and the United Kingdom (Department for International Development).
Format:
online
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