Extending Multidimensional Poverty Identification: From Additive Weights to Minimal Bundles

Monday, February 14th, 2022
11:00 – 12:15 p.m. ET
via Zoom

We were pleased to invite you to a joint virtual event with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report Office (HDRO) on Monday, February 14th, 2022. This event featured Sam Jones (UNU-WIDER) presenting “Extending Multidimensional Poverty Identification: From Additive Weights to Minimal Bundles.”

In this event, Sam Jones presented his paper which examines how in the popular class of multidimensional poverty measures introduced by Alkire and Foster (2011), a threshold switching function is used to identify who is multidimensionally poor. This paper shows that the weights and cut-off employed in this procedure are generally not unique and that such functions implicitly assume all groups of deprivation indicators of some fixed size are perfect substitutes. To address these limitations, he shows how the identification procedure can be extended to incorporate any type of positive switching function, represented by the set of minimal deprivation bundles that define a unit as poor. Furthermore, the Banzhaf power index, uniquely defined from the same set of minimal bundles, constitutes a natural and robust metric of the relative importance of each indicator, from which the adjusted headcount can be estimated. He demonstrates the merit of this approach using data from Mozambique, including a decomposition of the adjusted headcount using a ‘one from each dimension’ non-threshold function.

About the Speakers:

Sam Jones is a Research Fellow at UNU-WIDER based in Mozambique, on extended leave from his position as an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen. He is a versatile economist with expertise in microeconomic empirical methods, education, labour markets, development finance (including foreign aid) and policy macroeconomics. Sam’s work has been published in leading journals, such as Journal of Development Economics, World Bank Economic Review, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Food Policy, Social Science & Medicine, Journal of Economic Inequality, World Development, Journal of Development Studies, African Development Review, and Journal of African Economies. Much of Sam’s academic research has focused on sub-Saharan Africa and he has previously worked extensively in Mozambique, spending over ten years as an advisor in the Ministry of Finance.

About the Discussant:

James Foster is the Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs, Professor of Economics, and Co-Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the George Washington University. He is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. Professor Foster’s research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the wellbeing of people. His work underlies many well-known social indices including the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) published annually by the UNDP in the Human Development Report, dozens of national MPIs used to guide domestic policy against poverty, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) at USAID, the Gross National Happiness Index of Bhutan, the Better Jobs Index of the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the Statistical Performance Index of the World Bank. Prof. Foster received his PhD in Economics from Cornell University and has a Doctorate Honoris Causa from Universidad Autónoma del Estado Hidalgo (Mexico).

About the Series:

The Institute for International Economic Policy (IIEP) at George Washington University and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), with the support of the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report office (UNDP HDRO), are pleased to host a special seminar series on the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (global MPI). Goal 1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to end poverty in all its forms and dimensions. The global MPI offers a tool to make progress towards this goal.

Bringing together the academic and policy spheres, this series of seminars will highlight topics such as race, ethnicity, gender, and caste, the statistical capacity of nations, social protection, the use of geospatial mapping in tracking poverty, poverty and refugees, and evaluating whether we’re on track to meet UN SDG Goal #1. The sessions will also include work that applies the global MPI methodology, the Alkire Foster method, to innovative measures.

The seminars are taking place online on Mondays at 11 a.m. EST. They will be hosted by IIEP Professor James Foster and are open to everyone focused on improving the lived experience of those who are deprived.