Title_ The “Great Myanmar Poverty Debate”

Author_ Paul SHAFFER

Pages 1-42

Abstract_ There is a “micro-macro paradox” in poverty measurement. In a number of countries, declines in income or consumption poverty found in nationally representative household survey data are at odds with people’s perceptions of worsening poverty or deprivation more broadly. The objective of this article is to offer a number of potential explanations for this paradox and to present the case of Myanmar where many of these same issues have recently played out. It is argued that there are plausible explanations which reconcile, in part, apparently conflicting positions in Myanmar’s “Great Poverty Debate.”

Keywords_ Poverty, Measurement, Methods, Asia, Myanmar