Economic Inequality and Poverty Facts, Methods, and Policies

Issues of economic inequality and poverty have become increasingly central to public debate over the past fifty years. The literature on measuring economic inequality and poverty has vastly expanded, developing many new methods but also generating many controversies. Economic Inequality and Poverty provides a systematic treatment of the development of inequality and poverty, focusing on how income inequality and poverty measurements have evolved in recent decades and identifying approaches to resolving some of the methodological and factual conflicts. The bookâs primary aim is to analyse the relationships between individuals and householdsâ distributions of economic variables. These relationships are crucial in understanding many economic phenomena. Kakwani and Son employ household surveys to illustrate the application of their framework, demonstrating its importance in drawing evidence-based policy conclusions.

Nanak Kakwani, Visiting Professor of Economics, China Institute for Income Distribution at Beijing Normal University,Hyun Son, Principal Evaluation Specialist, Asian Development Bank

Nanak Kakwani was a Professor of Economics for thirty years at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Between 2003 and 2006, he was Principal Researcher and Director at United Nations Development Program's International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth in Brazil. He is currently
Visiting Professor of Economics at China Institute for Income Distribution at Beijing Normal University.

Hyun Hwa Son is a Principal Evaluation Specialist in the Independent Evaluation Department of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Before joining ADB in March 2007, she was a poverty specialist at the United Nations Development Programme; she also worked for the World Bank in Washington D.C. and held
an academic position at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. She has published over thirty articles in international journals, and has published two books in economic development: Social Welfare Functions and Development: Measurement and Policy Applications (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), and
Equity and Well-Being: Measurement and Policy Practice (Routledge, 2011). She has a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of New South Wales.