In the media
Above or below the poverty line – research on shifts in global poverty picked up by development media

New research from Andy Sumner, Eduardo Ortiz-Juarez, and Chris Hoy, has piqued the interest of the development community.

The recent journal article, ‘Measuring global poverty before and during the pandemic: A political economy of overoptimism’, analyses and brings into question the ‘official’ estimates of global monetary poverty up to and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To accompany the release of the journal article, Andy Sumner and Eduardo Ortiz-Juarez wrote a blog for the WIDERAngle focusing on the key elements to understanding shifts in global poverty. This blog reveals that as much as two-thirds of the data used to measure global poverty are estimated based on assumed changes to old data. In fact, no poverty data has been collected for India in a decade.

Through a series of graphs, the authors also show the difference adding a few cents to the poverty line makes for the statistics on both the number of people living in poverty, and the region of the world with the largest share of people falling below the poverty line.

The blog gained interest in several development media outlets and was reprinted by Global Policy Journal and OECD Development Matters, among others. Meanwhile the Finnish magazine Kehitys (Development) wrote a feature discussing the journal article and blog.

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IPS News
Global Policy Journal
EADI Blog
OECD Development Matters
Kehitys Lehti (in Finnish)