The Foster-Greer-Thorbecke Poverty Measures: Twenty Five Years Later

Twenty-five years ago the FGT class of decomposable poverty measures was introduced in Foster, Greer, and Thorbecke (1984). The present study provides a retrospective view of the FGT paper and the subsequent literature, as well as a brief discussion of future directions. We begin by describing the context and origins of our paper, and identify three categories of contributions: to measurement, to axiomatics, and to application. A representative subset of the literature generated by the FGT methodology is discussed and grouped according to this taxonomy. The FGT paper has played a central role in several thriving literatures, and has contributed to the design, implementation and evaluation of prominent development programs. The breadth of its impact is evidenced by the many topics beyond poverty to which its methodology has been applied. The paper concludes with a discussion of prospective research topics.