Subj: Economics, demography, PPP and poverty

Date: 07/01/03

To: hln3@columbia.edu

File: C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\Very short version 2.doc (27648 bytes) DL Time (32000

bps): < 1 minute

Dear Mr Nye

Thank you for helping to publicise the flaws in PPP as a poverty measure. As I

said to Thomas Pogge, it's one of the most sensible, and so important, pieces of

work in development studies in recent times. I also appreciate your work on

trade, growth and poverty.

I talked to Thomas Pogge today in Oxford, who's interested in what I have to

say, and I thought you might be interested in this. There are many flaws in

cross-country regression analyses claiming benefits to poor people; but not

all of them have been brought together. Angus Deaton has identified some

problems with poverty analysis which I have come up with independently. So

has Sen, and again these have not been brought to bear, in total, on the

inferential processes of economists or on official statements. I do this in

my spare time. By the way, on the trade study, it's worth noting that life

expectancy went down in Uganda. Where this happens disproportionately to people

on below-mean income, we can't assume that the average gain was the same as the

change in per capita income, or the average gain to poor people the same as the

change in poorest-quintile average income. Here is a 1000-word summary of some

points about economic theory, poverty analysis, demography and PPP. The next

email has a draft of 40,000 words expanding the points. Various people like

John Broome in Oxford, and Gary King at Harvard are looking at versions of it.

Best wishes

Matt Berkley

Oxford, UK