Book Review: The Economics of Poverty and Inequality
| Author | Neil Fraser |
| DOI | 10.1177/138826270300500407 |
| Published date | 01 December 2003 |
| Date | 01 December 2003 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
344 Intersentia
Cowell F. (ed.)
The Economics of Poverty and Inequality
,
Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, 2 volumes, 2003, ISBN 1-840645679
The main topics covered in this two-volume collection of essays are
conceptual issues in the welfare-economic approach to the analysis of
inequality and poverty. The editor gives an erudite introduction explaining
the basis for selecting the articles and including extracts, of which there are
71 in all. Central to the selection is the axiomatic approach to both income
distribution and poverty. This involves specifying a list of properties a priori
that should characterise poverty/income inequality comparisons. Problems
tackled in the measurement of inequality include: assessing inequality with
intersecting Lorenz curves and the choice of summary statistics of inequality.
Problems in the measurement of poverty include criticisms of and
alternatives to the headcount approach, and the incorporation of non-
income factors. Other topics represented by seminal articles are equivalence
scales, measuring degrees of progression in taxation and modelling poverty
dynamics. Many papers here require familiarity with mathematics and
statistical theory to understand them – they are not easy reading.
Authors represented include Amartya Sen, Tony Atkinson, Peter Townsend
(who is somewhat out of place in this collection), Martin Ravallion, Angus
Deaton and John Muellbauer, Richard Musgrave, Jan Pen and classics such
as Pigou, Lorenz, Gini and Pareto. I would especially pick out the following
four papers to represent the approach outlined above: Tony Atkinson, ‘On
the Measurement of Inequality’, Journal of Economic Theory, 1970; Amartya
Sen, ‘Issues in the Measurement of Poverty’, Scandinavian Journal of
Economics, 1979; Martin Ravallion, ‘Issues in Measuring and Modelling
Poverty’, Economic Journal, 1996; and Angus Deaton and John Muellbauer,
‘On Measuring Child Costs’, Journal of Political Economy, 1986.
Non-economists will find the concerns rather unfamiliar. The debate about
absolute v. relative definitions in the meaning of poverty is however
represented by Mollie Orshansky in Social Security Bulletin, 1965; Peter
Townsend’s Poverty in the United Kingdom, 1979, (chapter 1), and Amartya
Sen ‘Poor, Relatively Speaking’, Economic Journal, 1983. Evaluations of social
security strategies are conspicuously absent, although the articles about
poverty measurement and equivalence scales can of course be relevant to
social security debates.
Neil Fraser
School of Social and Political Studies
University of Edinburgh
Book Reviews
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