[lbo-talk] question on poverty and world bank's PPP

Jeffrey Fisher jfisher at igc.org
Tue Mar 16 20:16:23 PST 2004


i actually have hard copy of the UN's 2001 global report on human settlements, which i've been flipping through to see how they flesh out the concept of absolute poverty, and how they might bring together data on access to resources (water, education, etc.) and income.

first, i'm seeing the same arg's i've seen on this list about the inadequacy of income-based measures, but they also argue that the income-based lines are misleading from yet another angle, "in that they imply that the income needed to avoid poverty is not only the same in all locations within countries but also the same across countries. this leads to an underestimation of the scale of 'income-poverty' since the income level needed to avoid poverty is much higher than US$1 a day in most large and/or prosperous cities."

on the food/calorie question, they note:

"Income-based poverty lines are generally based on estimates of the cost of an 'adequate' diet with some minor additional amount added for non-food expenditures." while this may underestimate (per chris's point) other ways of getting food, it is also quite likely to underestimate what amounts to an "adequate" diet. and in cities, you don't go hunting so much (except for rats, in chicago). then there are non-food expenditures . . .

interestingly, the strongest point i'm seeing is that lots of non-food things like education, water, sanitation, etc., add up to significant portions of income -- particularly in cities, which is the focus of this report, and even where such things are public provision. for example:

"in many cities, renting a room takes 20-30% of the poor households' income, even though the quality of the accommodation may be inadequate. [ . . . ] Many households have such inadequate access to water and sanitation that paying vendors and paying for 'as-you-go' toilets takes up 5-20% of income."

fyi. all very interesting.

j

On Tuesday, March 16, 2004, at 10:17 PM, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:


> we've talked about this stuff in terms of subsistence, etc. and i have
> been pulling in data on access to resources from the UN. :-) but what
> talks like money?
>
> thanks,
>
> j
>
> On Tuesday, March 16, 2004, at 12:07 PM, Miles Jackson wrote:
>
>> You can get this across to students
>> by talking about limited access to clean water, health
>> care, education, food, shelter (UN has good but depressing
>> data on these).
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>



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