Value Judgements in Multidimensional Poverty Indices

After a slow start in the 1980’s and 1990’s empirical applications of the capability approach have gained significant momentum in recent years, thanks in large part to technical and methodological advances in the multidimensional measurement of poverty (Alkire & Foster, 2011; Bourguignon & Chakravarty, 1999; Duclos, Shan, & Younger, 2006). As we progress in this direction, we come across an increasing number of normative questions that are inherent to the measurement of welfare concepts. Some of these are specific to multidimensional welfare/poverty, others are common to both multidimensional and unidimensional measures – although often overlooked and/or taken for granted. None of these can be answered through methodological or technical responses alone, and each will require a genuine cross-disciplinary effort, not only to understand the ethical and philosophical implications of different choices regarding functional forms, weights, etc., but also to ensure that the responses we generate are articulated with the tools and language that is useful to economists and other social scientists. For the purpose of the Fell Fund grant that finances this workshop, we identified the following non-exhaustive list of normative issues that would require consideration when constructing multidimensional poverty indices: