POVERTY AND EQUITY MEASUREMENT POLICY AND ESTIMATION WITH DAD (HB) 2006

The publication of this book is in large part due to the role of Canada's Inter­ national Development Research Center (IDRC) in encouraging policy-relevant research in the fields o f poverty and equity. The book has in particular benefit­ ted much from IDRC's support of two significant ventures, the Micro Impacts of Macro Economic and Adjustment Programs (MIMAP) and the Poverty and Economic Policy (PEP) international research network. We are most grateful to the IDRC for their continued and inspiring dedication, professionalism and vision in the field of development research. The Secretariat d'appui instituti- nel a la recherche ^conomique en Afrique (SISERA), the World Bank Institute and the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) have also partially supported to the production of this book. The fundamental research was fur­ ther financed by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and from the Ponds Quebecois de Recherche sur la Societe et la Culture (FQRSC) of the Province of Quebec. This book is mostiy targeted to senior undergraduate and graduate students in economics as well as to researchers and analytical policy makers. More gen­ erally, it is intended for social scientists and statisticians. Some of its content can also be instructive to less specialized readers, such as those in the general public wishing to introduce themselves to the challenges posed and the insights generated by distributive analysis. The book covers a relatively wide range of material.

This text addresses the understanding and alleviation of poverty, inequality, and inequity using a unique and broad mix of concepts, measurement methods, statistical tools, software, and practical exercises. Part I discusses basic fundamental issues of well-being and poverty measurement. Part II develops an integrated framework for measuring poverty, social welfare, inequality, vertical equity, horizontal equity, and redistribution. Part III presents and develops recent methods for testing the robustness of distributive rankings. Part IV discusses ways of using policy to alleviate poverty, improve welfare, increase equity, and assess the impact of growth. Part V applies the tools to real data.

Most of the book’s measurement and statistical tools have been programmed in DAD, a well established and widely available free software program that has been tailored especially for income distribution analysis and is used by scholars, researchers, and analysts in nearly 100 countries worldwide. It requires basic understanding of calculus and statistics.

Abdelkrim Araar and Jean-Yves Duclos teach economics at Université Laval in Québec City.