The value-added of multidimensional poverty measures

We’ve been asked to produce a brief and informal summary of an exchange between ourselves and Martin Ravallion, who is currently Acting Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of the World Bank. All of us agree, as Ravallion pointed out, that poverty is multidimensional. Our exchange concerned whether our group’s efforts to incorporate multiple dimensions into the very definition of who is poor and the measurement of poverty “contributes to better thinking about poverty, and to better policies for fighting poverty.” This short article summarizes some salient points contained in articles [2] [3] [4] and [6]; related points were also exchanged in blogs.