I think the Poverty Headcount ratio is the best method when we compared with other two. To more detail, please see this attachemt

Dear Ahamed Lebbe Mohamed Aslam  thank you very much for your kind cooperation in this regards. I will read this suggested article. 

I always prefer to measure poverty multi-dimensionally. Thus, Capability Approach offered by Professor Dr. Amartya Sen can be a good starting point. For social poverty measures, I would recommend to read the lists offered by Prof. Dr. Martha Nussabum and Dr. Naila Kabeer. I always found indicators of poverty very much area centered. That's why if you want to explore the multi-dimensional nature of poverty of a specific area, I strongly recommend to make a long list of all available poverty indicators (based on literature review) and then customize the list for that specific area by using a multidimensional model development process (preferably structural equation modeling). Hope this works. Happy research. 

In general Sen index, but in concrete am afraid that it depends more on the country (developed or not) you are studing and the statistics available...

Hello Gangadhar:

World Bank, uses growth incidence curves (GIC) show the annualized growth rate of income for every percentile of the income distribution and are calculated using pooled harmonized data from 17 countries. In order to analyze the same set of countries every year, interpolation was applied when country data were not available for a given year.

Poverty is a relative concepts that encourage economist to be measured. I lived with indigenous communities that lives with less than a 1 dolar per day, but food was always available. Once I used a methodology based in consumption, there are several authors who worked in this idea. Others in family consumption when you can visit families and identify the type of floor, the house infraestructure, the bathroom, etc. It depends of the objetive of the project. You should answer a question. As I said with indigenous population this concept became extrwmely relative. But if you are in a city poverty became a concept less relative. 

I think the best method is Human Poverty Index

 see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Poverty_Index

It depends on purpose of measurement, different approaches have to be used for international comparisons and different if one aims at identifying those in the country who should be targeted by social policies. Povert is always a relative concept and even in the poorest country there are those who are relative,y poor and relatively reacher, that us why measuring poverty for policy purposes should poverty measures which relate situation of households to overall distribution of income, consumption, acces to public services lke health and education, housing, energy etc. Poverty is at the same time multidimensional concept and it is alway useful to use a set of indicators reflecting those different dimensions than just one indicator of monetary poverty.

In Mexico there is an Institution for dealing with this problem Consejo Nacional de Evaluación de la Política de Desarrollo Social (CONEVAL). It has an interesting paper about Methodology for measuring multidimensional poverty in Mexico.I attach it.

I attach the paper

Poverty is multidimensionl phenomenon. use capability approach. see my papers

1. "Income, Public Social Services, and Capability Development: A cross District Analysis of Pakistan" PIDE Working PaperS 2008:43.

2. Human Capital vs Phuysical Capital: Across Country Analysis of Human Development Strategies, PIDE Working Paper 2009:51

Hello Rizwana,

yes, poverty is a multidimensional problem, i will check your papers and give you my opinion,

you have a good day

Poverty, as most people knows is a multidimensional issue. Not jus connected with an economic environment.

Poverty has nothing to see with economic development and of course within the tools used to measure it. That is why GDP are outdated for an increasing number of researchers and practicioners.

Even Human Development Index is not really as accurate to measure Development or Poverty, so a new index has just been launched wich is the so call "Police Coherence for Development Index". Here you can read more about it

Dear Gangadhar Dahal,

I agree with other colleagues that poverty is nowadays a multidimensional phenomenon.

The most recent and innovative method for estimating multidimensional poverty is based on FUZZY SETS theory. Some authors argue that this is also the best method to measure the capabilities of Sen. 

Please have a look at my recent papers in Empirical Economics and Social Indicators Research:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270454990_Comparative_measures_of_multidimensional_deprivation_in_the_European_Union

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286413553_Fuzzy_Measures_of_Longitudinal_Poverty_in_a_Comparative_Perspective

Moreover, the edited book of Lemmi and Betti (2006) could the theoretical backgraond of the Fuzzy Set Approach to Multidimensional Poverty measurement.

Best regards,

Gianni

Article Comparative measures of multidimensional deprivation in the ...

Article Fuzzy Measures of Longitudinal Poverty in a Comparative Perspective

Princeton University economist Angus Deaton, "has refreshed the debate about how to measure economic well-being. His work cautions against measuring economic security merely as income.

National data—unemployment and poverty rates, for instance—offer limited insights into society’s most vulnerable. Mr. Deaton highlights the importance of including food, housing and other needs"

Dear Gangadhar sir. My congrats for picking up a  very interesting issue that you've raised. Poverty being a multidimensional phenomenon is to be examined initially in two streams: absolute and relative poverty incidents. In Nepal, and many other countries with similar socioeconomic status, the poverty measurement consists of per-ca-pita calorie intake. For  a longitudinal research work, it is desirable that this measurement be applied in conjunction with other tools as advised by other researchers earlier. All the best, Gangadhar sir 

Thank you very much  for compliments  dear Martha Pantoja, Rizwana Siddiqui, Placido Lizancos Mora , Gianni Betti , Arhan Sthapit, PhD and other friends. 

I thing the bes method to measure poverty is families income.

Dear Gangadhar Dahal, I agree with all the respondent that poverty is a multidimensional concept and that one has to look at all the dimensions - income, access to goods and services. in particular access to health care, education and other public goods, housing and many other. But I would like to stress one important thing - poverty is a relative not absolute concept - one has to look on situation of households in relation to other households in the same society. From the social policy point of view it is not very helpful to find out that nearly everybody is poor as there is no realistic social policy which could do something about it. From social policy point of view it is important to identify those who are poorer than the others, and to find out reasons for this and then to deal with those reasons using social policy instruments.

I am agree that poverty is a multidimemsional concept. As an anthropologist I prefer to use ethnographic and observation - participation methodology in order to determine some hypothesis. Spend time with the community give us the opportunity to really understand what are their problems and difficulties. Much more than questionaries, I recommend interviews in order to obtain what we called an ethnographic data. Time will give you the opportunity to corroborate hypothesis. Some times we have a first impression of what is going on in a community but in a second or third visit this idea start to be more cleared and is not what we thought at the beggining. 

I have worked a lot about this question when doing a researchfield in Mozambique. You can find our achievements on the paper "Architects first hand. An experience in Mozambique". Please follow the link below.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304422135_Architects_first_hand_An_experience_in_Mozambique

Research Architects first hand. An experience in Mozambique

Hello Gangadhar,

We gave you many papers about how to measure poverty; but it depends what do you want to get?

Best Regards

Although poverty is a multi-dimensional concept and also relative to particular societies one has to consider minimum basic standards. A question for reseaerch is how big the area of investigation, the time and funding available as well as ethical issues. Often it is easier to make a livelihood analysis, which can present also also a more dynamic picture. Some good literature on poverty research I have listed below

Martin Ravallion

The Economics of Poverty: History, Measurement, and Policy [1 ed.]

Oxford University Press

2016

Sabina Alkire, James Foster, Suman Seth, Maria Emma Santos, Jose Manuel Roche, Paola Ballon

Multidimensional Poverty Measurement and Analysis [1 ed.]

Oxford University Press

2015

Stephan Klasen, Hermann Waibel (eds.)

Vulnerability to Poverty: Theory, Measurement and Determinants, with Case Studies from Thailand and Vietnam [1 ed.]

Palgrave Macmillan UK

2013

Nanak Kakwani, Jacques Silber

Quantitative Approaches to Multidimensional Poverty Measurement [First Edition]

023000489X, 9780230004894, 9780230582354

2008

Udaya Wagle (auth.)

Multidimensional Poverty Measurement: Concepts and Applications [1 ed.]

Springer-Verlag New York

2008

Estanislao Gacitua-Mario, Quentin Wodon

Measurement and Meaning: Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Methods for the Analysis of Poverty and Social Exclusion in Latin America

0821350544, 9780821350546

World Bank Publications, World Bank Technical Papers 518

2001

Peter Svedberg

Poverty and Undernutrition: Theory, Measurement, and Policy (Studies in Development Economics) [1 ed.]

0198292686, 9780198292685, 9780585368016

Oxford University Press, USA

2000

Norman Messer, Philip Townsley

Local Institutions And Livelihoods: Guidelines For Analysis

925105049X, 9789251050491

Rural Development Division Food and Agricultu

2004

Vishwambhar Prasad Sati, Lalrinpuia Vangchhia (auth.)

A Sustainable Livelihood Approach to Poverty Reduction: An Empirical Analysis of Mizoram, the Eastern Extension of the Himalaya [1 ed.]

978-3-319-45622-5, 978-3-319-45623-2

Springer International Publishing, SpringerBriefs in Environmental Science

2017

The poverty gap index is an improvement over the poverty measure headcount ratio which simply counts all the people below a poverty line, in a given population, and considers them equally poor.