New approaches to measuring poverty and vulnerability

This project investigates issues concerning poverty and vulnerability in developing countries building on behavioural economics. The project seeks to derive poverty measures that are based on prospect theory, an alternative model to expected utility theory for decision-making under uncertainty. The new measure takes into account the reference point individuals use when evaluating their wellbeing and the possibility for loss aversion, which highlights the importance of downside risks. These measures are then implemented using panel and cross-section data from developing countries.

Team

Focal point: Finn Tarp

Assistant: Anne Ruohonen

33 articles, publications, projects, experts...

View as

Filter by...

Reset all
Type

    Professor Tarp has four decades of experience in academic and applied development economics research and teaching. His field experience covers more than two decades of in-country work in 35 countries across Africa and the developing world more...

    Video
    UNU-WIDER Conference on Poverty and Behavioural Economics Plenary sessions

    Policy Brief
    Lessons from Behavioural Economics for Policy-Making
    Working Paper
    Behavioral Design

    Successful development programs rely on people to behave and choose in certain ways, and behavioral economics helps us understand why people behave and choose as they do. Approaching problems in development using behavioral economics thus leads to...

    Blog
    Lessons from Behavioural Economics for Development Policy
    Placeholder

    23 April 2014 Jukka Pirttilä​ In conventional economic theory, agents are assumed to be able to make rational choices, unaffected by emotions and not...

    Working Paper
    Savings By and For the Poor

    The poor can and do save, but often use formal or informal instruments that have high risk, high cost, and limited functionality. This could lead to undersaving compared to a world without market or behavioural frictions. Undersaving can have...

    Journal Article
    Social Capital, Network Effects, and Savings in Rural Vietnam

    Part of Journal Special Issue Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics

    Journal Article
    Savings by and for the Poor

    Part of Journal Special Issue Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics

    Journal Article
    Introduction: poverty, development, and behavioral economics

    Part of Journal Special Issue Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics

    Journal Article
    Behavioral Design

    Part of Journal Special Issue Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics

    Journal Article
    Do Non-Enforceable Contracts Matter?

    Part of Journal Special Issue Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics

    Journal Article
    Aid Distribution and Cooperation in Unequal Communities

    Part of Journal Special Issue Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics

    Journal Article
    Income Inequality, Redistribution, and Poverty

    Part of Journal Special Issue Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics

    Journal Article
    Poverty, Vulnerability, and Reference-Dependent Utility

    Part of Journal Special Issue Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics

    Journal Article
    Poverty and Welfare Measurement on the Basis of Prospect Theory

    Part of Journal Special Issue Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics

    Journal Special Issue
    Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics

    This Special Issue brings together papers from UNU-WIDER Conference on Poverty and Behavioural Economics that were accepted after the peer review process of the journal. The eight papers in this Special Issue all share the objective of exploring the...

    Displaying 16 of 33 results

    Context

    Main subject

    Theme: Past, 2010-11

    Keywords