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NEW DELHI: What would global poverty look like if we worked with national poverty lines instead of the accepted international definition of $1.25? Economists Ugo Gentilini and Andy Sumner set out to answer this question and among their findings is that one of the biggest changes would come on account of India - a 45 million person-sized change.
Gentilini, a policy adviser at the United Nations World Food Programme, and Sumner, a Research Fellow at the University of Sussex's Institute of Development Studies, looked at national poverty lines in 160 countries to compare their domestic poverty numbers with those that come from the internationally accepted $1.25 poverty line. At the aggregate level, the two sets of poverty lines are significantly correlated. However with some countries, there are big differences.
Even with its national poverty line just a short way below the $1.25 line, India has 45.5 million fewer poor people according to national estimates than the international community's count, Gentilini and Sumner show in their IDS working paper. In absolute terms, this makes India's national poverty numbers the biggest 'under-estimation' in comparison to the international definition, of any country. China's poverty line 'under-estimates' poverty by 44 million persons but its new definition of poverty, say the authors, comes close to the $1.25 line.
At the other end of the spectrum, Mexico's national poverty estimates of 52 million poor are the biggest 'over-estimation'; the $1.25 per day line puts poverty in Mexico at just 4.8 million people. Just slightly behind Mexico is, surprisingly, the United States; by the international definition, it has no poor people. By its own national definition, however the United States has 46 million poor people.
Part of the explanation is that the $1.25 line is arrived out by averaging the national poverty lines of the 15 poorest countries while a majority of the world's poor now live in middle-income countries, an issue Sumner has written extensively on. "A n interesting question is whether the international poverty line should be based on the average national poverty lines of the countries with the highest number of poor people, rather than the average of the national poverty lines of the poorest countries," Sumner said in an email.
The other issue is that how a country defines its poor is essentially political. So while Japan considers a fifth of its people to be poor, its poverty line is far higher than that of India or China. "Recent upward revisions of national poverty lines in China and India show that policymakers are recognizing the challenge [of low poverty lines]," Sumner said over email. "They are also exploring new ways to better connect national poverty definitions and measures to domestic social protection systems and programs," he added.
India underestimates poverty in comparison to global standard - The Times of India
Indian is fudging the data.
Gentilini, a policy adviser at the United Nations World Food Programme, and Sumner, a Research Fellow at the University of Sussex's Institute of Development Studies, looked at national poverty lines in 160 countries to compare their domestic poverty numbers with those that come from the internationally accepted $1.25 poverty line. At the aggregate level, the two sets of poverty lines are significantly correlated. However with some countries, there are big differences.
Even with its national poverty line just a short way below the $1.25 line, India has 45.5 million fewer poor people according to national estimates than the international community's count, Gentilini and Sumner show in their IDS working paper. In absolute terms, this makes India's national poverty numbers the biggest 'under-estimation' in comparison to the international definition, of any country. China's poverty line 'under-estimates' poverty by 44 million persons but its new definition of poverty, say the authors, comes close to the $1.25 line.
At the other end of the spectrum, Mexico's national poverty estimates of 52 million poor are the biggest 'over-estimation'; the $1.25 per day line puts poverty in Mexico at just 4.8 million people. Just slightly behind Mexico is, surprisingly, the United States; by the international definition, it has no poor people. By its own national definition, however the United States has 46 million poor people.
Part of the explanation is that the $1.25 line is arrived out by averaging the national poverty lines of the 15 poorest countries while a majority of the world's poor now live in middle-income countries, an issue Sumner has written extensively on. "A n interesting question is whether the international poverty line should be based on the average national poverty lines of the countries with the highest number of poor people, rather than the average of the national poverty lines of the poorest countries," Sumner said in an email.
The other issue is that how a country defines its poor is essentially political. So while Japan considers a fifth of its people to be poor, its poverty line is far higher than that of India or China. "Recent upward revisions of national poverty lines in China and India show that policymakers are recognizing the challenge [of low poverty lines]," Sumner said over email. "They are also exploring new ways to better connect national poverty definitions and measures to domestic social protection systems and programs," he added.
India underestimates poverty in comparison to global standard - The Times of India
Indian is fudging the data.
