Poverty Where People Live: What do National Poverty Lines Tell us about Global Poverty?

Abstract

Debate about national and international poverty measurement continued to evolve (see for example, Abu-Ismail et al., 2012). The basic question of how many poor people there are in the world generally assumes that poverty is measured according to international poverty lines (IPLs). Yet, an equally relevant question could be how many poor people there are in the world, based on how poverty is defined where those people live. In short, rather than a comparison based on monetary values, the latter question is germane to estimates based on a concept—‘poverty’—as defined by countries’ specific circumstances and institutions. (…)