4 ms·

Because that isn't the chart of the year, it's the chart of the century.

by nazgulnarsil 13y ago

adamnemecek 13y ago
Also it does not support his narrative.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  Also, it depends on setting an arbitrary poverty line (which in this case seems to be $1/day circa 1990, adjusted by PPP. Why $1? Probably because it sounded good and it was a round number. Since above/below the line is an all or nothing proposition, if you changed the line to $2, the graph could very well end up flat. edit: You could argue that that's clearly an improvement in circumstances, but I would argue that it's clearly an improvement of people making less than $1 against PPP. Only a subsistence subset of the items used to calculate PPP would be relevant to someone who makes less than $1 a day, and the prices of those items (food, heating fuel, etc) could very well have tripled or quadrupled during that same period without a direct effect on PPP measurements.
  - spikels 13y ago
    The $1/day figure was actually the estimate minimum survival income calculated for a number of poor countries then averaged and rounded. It's not perfect but not arbitrary either. In fact it is now usually quoted as either $1.25 or less frequently as $1.20. Wikipedia has a pretty good article on some of the complexities involved[1]. If you use a $2/day threshold (aka "moderate poverty") instead, the declines are not quite great but still pretty damn good - down 41% - from 69% below $2 in 1981 to only 41% in 2010 (calc from data here [2]). It is not flat! And it is also not an all or nothing proposition - the entire distribution has shifted! The distribution was graphed in Economist article above. The issues with PPP are more complex but everyone involved is aware of the issues you mention[3]. While biases can occur it is not generally considered to be a problem for the global aggregates. Dig into the World Banks's ICP website for the details on PPP in poor countries[4]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measuring_poverty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measuring_poverty [2] http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity [4] http://siteresources.worldbank.org/ICPEXT/Resources/ICP_2011.html http://siteresources.worldbank.org/ICPEXT/Resources/ICP_2011...
    - nazgulnarsil 13y ago
      thank you for taking the time to explain this.

Because that isn't the chart of the year, it's the chart of the century.

adamnemecek 13y ago

Also it does not support his narrative.

pessimizer 13y ago
Also, it depends on setting an arbitrary poverty line (which in this case seems to be $1/day circa 1990, adjusted by PPP. Why $1? Probably because it sounded good and it was a round number. Since above/below the line is an all or nothing proposition, if you changed the line to $2, the graph could very well end up flat. edit: You could argue that that's clearly an improvement in circumstances, but I would argue that it's clearly an improvement of people making less than $1 against PPP. Only a subsistence subset of the items used to calculate PPP would be relevant to someone who makes less than $1 a day, and the prices of those items (food, heating fuel, etc) could very well have tripled or quadrupled during that same period without a direct effect on PPP measurements.
- spikels 13y ago
  The $1/day figure was actually the estimate minimum survival income calculated for a number of poor countries then averaged and rounded. It's not perfect but not arbitrary either. In fact it is now usually quoted as either $1.25 or less frequently as $1.20. Wikipedia has a pretty good article on some of the complexities involved[1]. If you use a $2/day threshold (aka "moderate poverty") instead, the declines are not quite great but still pretty damn good - down 41% - from 69% below $2 in 1981 to only 41% in 2010 (calc from data here [2]). It is not flat! And it is also not an all or nothing proposition - the entire distribution has shifted! The distribution was graphed in Economist article above. The issues with PPP are more complex but everyone involved is aware of the issues you mention[3]. While biases can occur it is not generally considered to be a problem for the global aggregates. Dig into the World Banks's ICP website for the details on PPP in poor countries[4]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measuring_poverty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measuring_poverty [2] http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity [4] http://siteresources.worldbank.org/ICPEXT/Resources/ICP_2011.html http://siteresources.worldbank.org/ICPEXT/Resources/ICP_2011...
  - nazgulnarsil 13y ago
    thank you for taking the time to explain this.