Abstract
There is a growing interest on dynamic and broader concepts of deprivation such as vulnerability, which takes in to account the destitution of individuals from future shocks. We use the framework of decision making under uncertainty to arrive at a new measure of vulnerability to poverty. We highlight the importance of current standard of living to better capture the notion of vulnerability. In conceptualizing the new class of measures of vulnerability, we thus move beyond the standard expected poverty measures that is commonly found in the literature. We also axiomatically characterize the new class of measure and discuss some of its properties.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Atkins JP, Mazzi S, Easter CD (2000) A commonwealth vulnerability index for developing countries: the position of smallstates. Economic paper 40, Common Wealth Secretariat
Basu K, Nolen P (2005) Vulnerability, unemployment and poverty: a new class of measures, its axiomatic properties and applications, Mimeo
Bruguglio L, Galea W (2003) Updating and augmenting the economic vulnerability index. Occasional paper, University of Malta
Calvo C, Dercon S (2005) Measuring individual vulnerability. Economics series working papers 229, Department of Economics, University of Oxford
Chaudhuri S (2003) Assessing vulnerability to poverty: concepts, empirical methods and illustrative examples. Working paper, Columbia University
Chaudhuri S, Jalan J, Suryahadi A (2002) Assessing household vulnerability to poverty from cross-sectional data: a methodology and estimates from Indonesia. Working paper, Columbia University
Christianensen L, Boisvert RN (2000) On measuring household food vulnerability: case evidence from Nothern Mali. Working Paper, World Bank
Christianensen L, Subbarao K (2005) Towards an understanding of vulnerability in rural Kenya. J Afr Econ 14: 520–558
Dercon S, Krishnan P (2000) In sickness and in health: risk sharing within households in rural Ethiopia. J Political Econ 108: 688–727
Evanson E (1985) On the edge: a study of poverty and long term unemployment in Northern Ireland. Child Poverty Action Group, London
Ersado L (2008) Rural vulnerability in Serbia. Working paper 4010, World Bank
Foster J (1998) Absolute versus relative poverty. Am Econ Rev Pap Proc 88: 335–341
Hoddinott J, Quisumbing A (2003) Methods of microeconometric risk and vulnerability assessments. SPDP Series 0324 World Bank
Kamanou G, Morduch J (2002) Measuring vulnerability to poverty. WIDER discussion paper, 2002/58
Kreps D (1988) Notes on the theory of choice. Westview Press, Boulder
Ligon E, Schechter L (2003) Measuring vulnerability. Econ J 113: C95–C102
Menezes C, Geiss C, Tressler J (1980) Increasing downside risk. Am Econ Rev 70:921–932
Morduch J (1994) Poverty and vulnerability. Am Econ Rev Pap Proc 84: 221–225
Moser CON (1996) Confronting crisis: a comparative study of households response to poverty and vulnerability in four poor urbane communities. Working paper, ESD No. 8, World Bank
Pritchett L, Suryahadi A, Sumarto S (2000) Quantifying vulnerability to poverty. World Bank, Policy research working paper 2437
Royden HL (1988) Real analysis, 3rd edn. MacMillan, New York
Sen A (1976) Poverty: an ordinal approach to measurement. Econometrica 44: 219–231
Sen A (1981) Poverty and famines. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Sen A (1999) A plan for Asia’s growth. Asia Week, October 8, 25. http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/99/1008/viewpoint.html
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dutta, I., Foster, J. & Mishra, A. On measuring vulnerability to poverty. Soc Choice Welf 37, 743–761 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-011-0570-1
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-011-0570-1