Lecturer: Professor Stephen Jenkins

This course provides an introduction to the analysis and measurement of inequality and poverty from a quantitative perspective, examining concepts, measurement and data, as well as providing illustrations using real-world examples covering national and global trends over time, and cross-national comparisons.

The majority of the course focuses on analysis of inequality and poverty using monetary measures of living standards. The final section of the course broadens the perspective to consider a range of non-monetary and multidimensional measures reflecting the ‘Beyond Income’ agenda.

This course enables you to answer questions such as the following. Has global poverty fallen? Where is income inequality the greatest? What has happened to income inequality in Latin America? Or China? Do these trends correspond with those for high-income countries in the Global North? Are poverty rates higher in the USA than in Romania? How does the extent of wealth inequality compare with income inequality? To measure living standards, why not simply ask people how happy they are? Is the Human Development Index a good measure of how well countries are doing relative to one another? What are the data sources available for answering questions like these and how do their qualities compare? What are the main measurement tools and concepts that are available in principle and which ones are used in practice (e.g., in official statistics) – and why do they differ?

The course’s approach to analysis is avowedly quantitative, using charts and tables to summarize data and evidence about inequality and poverty. We therefore recommend having a basic training in statistics and maths, but it is possible to do well without these. More important is a willingness to engage intensively with the conceptual and empirical material in depth.