Ordinal Welfare Comparisons with Multiple Discrete Indicators: A First Order Dominance Approach and Application to Child Poverty

Channing Arndt, Roberta Distante, M. Azhar Hussain, Lars Peter Østerdal, Pham Lan Huong, Maimuna Ibraimo

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Abstract

We develop an approach for making welfare comparisons between populations with multidimensional discrete well-being indicators observed at the micro level. The approach is rooted in the concept of multidimensional first order dominance. It assumes that, for each indicator, the levels can be ranked ordinally from worse to better; however, no assumptions are made about relative importance of any dimension nor about complementarity/substitutability relationships between dimensions. We also introduce an efficient algorithm for determining dominance and employ a bootstrap approach that permits cardinal rankings of populations. These approaches are applied to household survey data from Vietnam and Mozambique.
Original languageEnglish
JournalWorld Development
Volume40
Issue number11
Pages (from-to)2290–2301
ISSN0305-750X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2012
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Ordinal
  • Welfare
  • Multi-dimensional poverty measurement
  • First order dominance
  • Mozambique
  • Vietnam

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