No. 755 - Asset-based measurement of poverty

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by Andrea Brandolini, Silvia Magri and Timothy M. SmeedingMarch 2010

Poverty is generally defined as income or expenditure insufficiency, but the economic condition of a household also depends on its real and financial asset holdings. This paper investigates measures of poverty that rely on indicators of household net worth. We review and assess two main approaches followed in the literature: income-net worth measures and asset-poverty. We provide fresh cross-national evidence based on data from the Luxembourg Wealth Study.

Published in 2012 in: D. J. Besharov and K. A. Couch (eds), Counting the Poor: New Thinking About European Poverty Measures and Lessons for the United States, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press

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