The persistence of inequalities in the distribution of income and wealth, both worldwide and within countries, is one of the main economic and social problems and the subject of many policy measures. The assessment on the extent of inequality and poverty as well as the efficacy of the policies designed to improve equality are also part of the on-going research agenda. Theoretical and applied contributions abound and the concern for inequality, poverty, and the related equity principles are expanding and becoming more and more relevant in these times of economic turbulences.

Those problems are multidimensional in nature. They involve many conceptual questions and refer to aspects that are partly qualitative. Those features make problems difficult and challenging, requiring a sound theoretical approach coupled with a robust empirical analysis.

The emphasis on multidimensionality, in particular, arises from the awareness that there may not be a suitable price system that allows aggregating different dimensions into a single number. This might be due to the non-existence of markets for some poverty dimensions (or the imperfection of those markets), the presence of externalities (the nature of public goods of some poverty dimensions), or the inadequacy of market prices to capture the relative importance of the different dimensions (as equilibrium prices depend on the prevailing income distribution in the whole society).

Defining a poverty measure in a truly multidimensional context involves a number of subtle and difficult issues: choosing the appropriate poverty dimensions beyond income or wealth, deciding on their relative importance, fixing sensible thresholds in those dimensions and setting criteria to identify as poor those individuals whose achievements lie partially below them, defining an overall measure of poverty intensity, etc. Those difficulties anticipate that many compromises are required and, indirectly, that the axiomatic approach may be a suitable way to deal with this type of problems as it makes explicit all those compromises.

The purpose of this seminar is to present some advances along these lines of research and give the opportunity to carry out a discussion among interested researchers.

Antonio Villar, Universidad Pablo de Olavide and Ivie

Sabina Alkire, OPHI-University of Oxford
Conchita D’Ambrosio, Università di Milano-Bicocca
Francisco Goerlich, Universitat de València and Ivie
Carmen Herrero, Universidad de Alicante and Ivie
Casilda Laso de la Vega, Universidad del País Vasco
Juan D. Moreno-Ternerno, Universidad Pablo de Olavide
Antonio Villar, Universidad Pablo de Olavide and Ivie

Universidad Pablo de Olavide
Sala de juntas del Edificio 3. Primera planta
Ctra. Utrera, Km. 1
Sevilla