Measuring lifetime poverty

This paper presents an axiomatic framework for measuring lifetime poverty over multiple periods. For an individual, we argue that lifetime poverty is influenced by both the “snapshot” poverty of each period and the poverty level of the “permanent” lifetime consumption; it is also influenced by how poverty spells are distributed over the lifetime. For a society, we consider a path-independence requirement to make the two alternative approaches of aggregation consistent. We axiomatically characterize classes of lifetime poverty indices and derive dominance conditions of poverty orderings for both individual and societal lifetime poverty measurements. JEL Classifications: I32