Poverty and Social Exclusion: New Methods of Analysis

Poverty and inequality remain at the top of the global economic agenda, and the methodology of measuring poverty continues to be a key area of research. This new book, from a leading international group of scholars, offers an up to date and innovative survey of new methods for estimating poverty at the local level, as well as the most recent multidimensional methods of the dynamics of poverty.

It is argued here that measures of poverty and inequality are most useful to policy-makers and researchers when they are finely disaggregated into small geographic units. Poverty and Social Exclusion: New Methods of Analysis is the first attempt to compile the most recent research results on local estimates of multidimensional deprivation. The methods offered here take both traditional and multidimensional approaches, with a focus on using the methodology for the construction of time-related measures of deprivation at the individual and aggregated levels. In analysis of persistence over time, the book also explores whether the level of deprivation is defined in terms of relative inequality in society, or in relation to some supposedly absolute standard.

This book is of particular importance as the continuing international economic and financial crisis has led to the impoverishment of segments of population as a result of unemployment, bankruptcy, and difficulties in obtaining credit. The volume will therefore be of interest to all those working on economic, econometric and statistical methods and empirical analyses in the areas of poverty, social exclusion and income inequality.

Gianni Betti is Associate Professor in Statistics and Economics and member of the Research Centre for Income Distribution at the University of Siena, Italy. He has worked for several projects for the World Bank and European Commission, and has been closely involved with the development of the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions,

Achille Lemmi is Full Professor in Statistics and Economics and Director of the Research Centre for Income Distribution at the University of Siena, Italy. He is Associate Editor of Statistics in Transition and member of the Editorial Board of Journal of Economic Inequality. His life-long research interest has been the study of income distribution, inequality and poverty.