A new distribution sensitive index for measuring welfare, poverty and inequality

Simple welfare indices, such as mean income and poverty headcount, which are commonly used to assess progress towards development goals, lack sensitivity to inequality. In other words, they do not respond to changes in income that occur, for instance, at the bottom of the distribution. Despite the existence of several indices in the economic literature to address this limitation, they are seldom employed due to their complexity in non-technical explanations and expression in non-intuitive units. In this webinar, the presenters will introduce a novel distribution sensitive welfare index with a simple mathematical formulation. The focus of their presentation will be on the empirical properties identified using the world income distribution data spanning from 1990 to 2019, along with specific policy applications.

SPEAKERS:

Nishant Yonzan is an Economist with the Development Data Group at the World Bank. His work involves improving the monitoring of global poverty and inequality, including managing the Poverty and Inequality Platform, the home of the World Bank’s global poverty numbers. His research focuses on the measurement of poverty, shared prosperity, and inequality, as well as understanding the relationship between institutions, inequality, and conflict. Nishant holds a PhD. in economics from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, USA.

Olivier Sterck is Associate Professor at the University of Antwerp and the University of Oxford. In the latter, he is also the lead economist of the Refugee Economies Programme (REP). Olivier’s research is multidisciplinary in scope, building bridges between development economics, health sciences, and refugee studies. He holds a PhD. In Economics from Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium.

Webcast