Handbook on Poverty and Inequality

For academics, policy analysts, researchers, graduate students, and government officials, this handbook from the World Bank provides technical and analytical tools to measure, describe, monitor, evaluate, and analyze poverty, as well as background materials for designing poverty reduction strategies. Haughton (economics, Suffolk U. and Beacon Hill Institute for Public Policy) and Khandker, an economist in the Development Research Group of the World Bank, explain how to measure poverty through analytical tools such as poverty lines and indexes, and analyze its dimensions, risks, and causes, as well as choose public actions and programs, identify indicators of progress, and monitor change. Included is discussion of the effects of taxation and spending, uses of survey data, and international poverty comparisons. The handbook was originally conceived to support training courses in poverty analysis and inequality and has been used in training workshops in countries around the world. It can be used for self-study or in training courses. An undergraduate-level background in science or social sciences is assumed. Annotation 穢2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)