Poverty Indicators in the Third World.

Paper Summary:

This papers investigates the pros and cons of the various methods used to measure wealth and poverty, such as GDP and others. Each of the four measures investigated has fans and skeptics regarding levels of accuracy. This paper includes tables illustrating how a country's wealth ranking can be altered when different measures are used.

From the Paper:

"It has never been easy to assess the extent of poverty in one part of the world when compared to another. Poverty can mean different things to different people. It is also important to remember that poverty is part of the wider issue of development. We should therefore have at the outset a core perspective or working definition on both poverty and development. Without such a perspective we could not measure poverty. To test the different measures of poverty, the following UN definition will suffice: "The income level below which a minimum nutritionally adequate diet plus essential non-food requirements are not affordable" (UNDP Development Report 1991:95). In other words, people are poor if they cannot afford day to day living. The UN also has the following definition of development: "Development is the process of enlarging the range of peoples choices increasing their opportunities for education, health care, income and employment, and covering the full range of human choices from a sound physical environment to economic and political freedoms" (UNDP Dev. Rep. 1992). Traditionally, there have been two main measures of poverty; Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross National Product (GNP). There are now, however, more measures, the two principles ones are; the Human Development Index (HDI) and the Human Poverty Index (HPI). All four, together with other indicators, will be evaluated and concluded upon here."

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