Handbook on Poverty Statistics: Concepts, Methods and Policy Use
   
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  Outline of the Handbook as of July 2004
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ST/ESA/STAT/POVERTY/WWW
1 January 2006

Handbook on Poverty Statistics:
Concepts, Methods and Policy Use

 

Chapter 5.

Statistical Tools and Estimation Methods For Poverty Measures Based on Cross-sectional Household Surveys

This chapter describes some methods and data that are available for measuring poverty with cross-sectional household surveys. After discussing a preference for consumption expenditure as a welfare indicator it examines several issues that are independent of the type of survey used: cross-survey comparability, measurement error, and variance estimators for complex sample designs. It then analyses the different types of cross-sectional surveys available, in terms of their suitability for poverty analysis. The final sections consider the need for information on prices when measuring poverty and the difficult issues involved in assessing individual welfare and poverty from household data.

Chapter 5