These workshops launched OPHI’s research themes on the ‘Missing Dimensions of Poverty Data‘ and ‘Multidimensional Poverty Comparisons‘.

Missing Dimensions of Poverty Data

This topic was proposed by a research workshop in May 2006, which observed that research is deeply affected by the lack of internationally comparable data on key capabilities or dimensions of deprivation and agreed that better data based on high quality empirical and conceptual research are needed. The workshop considered proposals for a short list of indicators that people cite as important in their experiences of poverty but are generally missing from internationally comparable surveys to date. See OPHI’s Missing Dimensions pages for up to date information on work on this research theme. One page overview of Missing Dimensions of Poverty Data workshop.

Tuesday 29 May, Introduction and Overview

Presentation: Sabina Alkire, A.B. Atkinson, Barbara Harriss-White
Materials: PDF of PowerPoint Sabina Alkire

Tuesday 29 May, Session I: Missing Dimensions of Human Development

Chair: Sabina Alkire
Frances Stewart “Beyond the HDI”
Giovanni Razzu “Freedom and Fairness: The Equalities Review”
Sören Gigler “Measures of Well-Being: a case study from Bolivia”
Materials: PDF of PowerPoint Sören Gigler, PDF of PowerPoint Giovanni Razzu

Tuesday 29 May, Session II: Physical Safety

Chair: Rosemary Thorp
Paper Author: Rachael Diprose
Presentation: Alex Butchart
Discussant: Kasirim Nwuke
Materials: shortlist, Full Paper, PDF of PowerPoint Alex Butchart

Tuesday 29 May, Session III: Empowerment and Agency

Chair: Minquan Liu
Paper Author: Solava Ibrahim
Presentation: Deepa Narayan
Discussant: David Hulme
Materials: shortlist, Full Paper, PDF of PowerPoint Solava Ibrahim and Deepa Narayan

Tuesday 29 May, Session IV: Psychological and Subjective Wellbeing

Chair: Paper Author: Emma Samman
Presentation: Laura Camfield
Discussant: Geeta Kingdon, Tania Burchardt
Materials: shortlist, Full Paper, PDF of PowerPoint Laura Camfield

Wednesday 30 May, Session V: Employment

Chair: Barbara Harriss-White
Paper Author: Maria Ana Lugo
Presentation: Grace Bediako
Discussants: N.S. Sastry, Sylvester Young
Materials: shortlist, Full Paper, PDF of PowerPoint Grace Bediako, PDF of PowerPoint Sylvester Young

Wednesday 30 May, Session VI: The Ability to go about without Shame

Chair: Michael Walton
Paper Author: Diego Zavaleta
Presentation: Jaqui Goldin
Discussants: Kim Samuel Johnson, Luis Quiroga
Materials: shortlist, Full Paper, PDF of PowerPoint I Jaqui Goldin, PDF of PowerPoint II Jaqui Goldin, PDF of PowerPoint Luis Quiroga

Wednesday 30 May, Public Seminar

Chair: Sudhir Anand
Presentation: Sabina Alkire, Solava Ibrahim, Rachael Diprose, Emma Samman, Diego Zavaleta, Maria Ana Lugo
Discussants: François Bourguignon, Stephan Klasen, Francesca Perucci
Materials: watch video, PDF of OPHI Presentation PowerPoint

Wednesday 30 May, Public Lecture: What Theory of Justice

Chair: Vice Chancellor
Presentation: Amartya Sen
Discussant: Barbara Harriss-White
Materials: watch video

One page overview of the workshop May 31 – June 1, 2007

Thursday 31 May, Session I: What Space for New Economic Approaches?

Chair: Ian Goldin
Participants: Michael Spence, Amartya Sen
Materials: watch video

Thursday 31 May, Session II: Directions for Research in Multidimensional Welfare Economics

Chair: Frances Stewart
Presentation I: Tony (A.B.) Atkinson
Presentation II: François Bourguignon
Materials: watch video

Thursday 31 May, Session III: Multidimensional Poverty: A Measure

Chair: Michael Spence
Paper: James Foster
Technical notes: Maria Ana Lugo “Multidimensional Poverty”
Enrica Chiappero-Martinetti “Fuzzy Set theory Union and Intersection”
Materials: PDF of PowerPoint James Foster, PDF of PowerPoint Maria Ana Lugo, PDF of PowerPoint Enrica Chiappero-Martinetti

Thursday 31 May, Session IV: Towards a Theory of Capability Comparison

Chair: Sabina Alkire
Paper: Prasanta Pattanaik
Technical notes: Achin Chakraborty, Reiko Gotoh
Materials: Paper of Reiko Gotoh, PDF of PowerPoint Achin Chakraborty

Friday 1 June, Session V: Aggregation Methods

Chair:
Presentations: Jose Manuel Roche “factor analysis”, Proochista Ariana “survey-based weights”, John Bosco Ki “dominance approaches”
Materials: Paper of Jose Manuel Roche, PDF of PowerPoint Jose Manuel Roche, PDF of PowerPoint Proochista Ariana

Friday 1 June, Session VI: Preferences

Chair: Ian Goldin
Presentations: Nuno Martins “neuro economics”, David Huffman and Uwe Sunde “experimental economics”, Sebastian Silva Leander “adaptive preferences”
Materials: Paper of Nuno Martins, PDF of PowerPoint David Huffman and Uwe Sunde, PDF of PowerPoint Sebastian Silva Leander

Friday 1 June, Session VII: Research Agenda and Process

Chair: Randy Spence
Speakers: James Foster, Prasanta Pattanaik and others.
Materials:

Poverty ratios below a poverty line don’t capture everything about poverty. The multi-dimensional poverty index (MPI) will be incorporated into this year’s HDR. Comparing apples with apples, 55% of India’s population is poor under MPI (2005 data), 42% below $1.25 a day, 76% below $2 a day and 29% below the national poverty line…read full article.

“Poverty is a cruel wild animal. If you doze, it eats you up.” You probably don’t have much in common (as I don’t) with Kevina, a 60-year-old woman who works her land in Uganda and described her life thus to a large participatory survey covering poor households and communities. She, along with a billion other people, understands poverty as we never will. How do we measure poverty?…read full article.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the poorest region in the world, followed by South Asia, according to a new measure developed by Oxford University, with support from the U.N…read the full article in the Huffington Post.

THIS week, we carried a piece about a new cross-country poverty index devised by a group of researchers at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, which is designed to capture several dimensions of poverty at once. The idea, as the piece explains, is that some aspects of poverty (say, nutrition) may not always move perfectly with income, so that looking directly at how many people are deprived along several (admittedly subjectively chosen) dimensions at once may give researchers and policymakers a better handle on just what poor people lack, and what could be done to deal with these problems… read the full article.