Economics Summer School at Universitat de Barcelona: "THE ECONOMICS OF POVERTY AND INEQUALITY"

This course will introduce participants to selected topics in research on poverty or inequality, which are essential for any attempt to meet this challenge, including questions of measurement, analysis, conceptual integration, available data and their limitation as well as the policy context of poverty measures.

This course has been primarily designed for master and PhD students. A background in statistics and econometrics is expected and prior knowledge in public economics or development economics is an advantage. While some lines of research involve formal reasoning, economic intuition is emphasised throughout the course. Lab sessions require basic Stata skills. Students are expected to bring their own notebooks, but a Stata license will be provided for the duration of the course. Finally, working language of the course will be English.

Academic Coordinator for the 2024 edition: Nicolai Suppa (University of Barcelona).

LECTURERS

• Nicolai Suppa is a Serra Húnter Lecturer in economics at the University of Barcelona. He is also research associate with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at Oxford University. His research currently focuses on measurement analysis of multidimensional poverty, but he is also interested in research on the capability approach and subjective well-being. In his work with OPHI, he is currently co-leading the estimation of the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI).
• Natalie Naïri Quinn is Departmental Lecturer in the Department of Economics and Fellow and Tutor in Economics Lady Margaret Hall, both in the Oxford University. Her research interests lie in the intersection of welfare economics and development economics, with a focus on measurement of socioeconomic outcomes including poverty and empowerment.

GUEST LECTURERS

• Iñaki Permanyer is an ICREA Research Professor working at the Center for Demographic Studies (CED) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. His research interests include inequality, polarization and poverty measurement, human development, gender inequality and social indicators. Currently he is working on Healthy lifespan inequality: Measurement, trends and determinants, a research project funded by the European Research Council (2020-2025). Iñaki will give a guest lecture on “Inequality in non-monetary dimensions of wellbeing”
• Xavier Ramos is Professor of Economics and Vice-Rector of Economy at Autonomous University of Barcelona. He is also a research fellow of IZA and founding member of EQUALITAS (Economics of Inequality and Poverty Analysis). His research focuses on economic inequality and poverty. He is currently working on equality of opportunity, intergenerational mobility, and public policy evaluation. Xavier will give a guest lecture on “Inequality of Opportunity”.
• Sabina Alkire is Professor of Poverty and Human Development at Oxford University and director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI). Her research interests include measurement and analysis of multidimensional poverty, welfare economics, the capability approach, the measurement of freedoms and human development. Together with Professor James Foster, she developed the Alkire-Foster (AF) method for measuring multidimensional poverty. Sabina will give a virtual guest lecture on “The capability approach”.
• Daniel Mahler is an Economist in the Development Data Group at The World Bank. His areas of expertise are the measurement of poverty, well-being, and justice. Daniel Mahler will give Virtual guest lecture on “The Poverty and inequality platform”.
• Christian Oldiges is Senior Economic Affairs Officer at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA). The responsibilities of his team at ESCWA includes the support of Member States in developing national multidimensional poverty indices (MPIs) and in designing poverty reduction strategies. Christian Oldiges will give a virtual guest lecture on “Poverty measures in the Arab region”

COURSE OUTLINE AND SCHEDULE

The course will introduce students into key topics of research on poverty and inequality, including

• a theoretical angle on related measures in terms of their desirable properties
• a conceptual integration into existing frameworks such as social choice theory and the capability approach
• monetary, non-monetary, and multidimensional accounts of poverty and inequality
• prominent global poverty measures
• conventional and novel forms of empirical analyses
• key findings and stylised facts of poverty and inequality around the world

The course will feature global analyses where feasible and add a gender perspective where data permits. The course will also present key data sources and highlight current limitations.

Lectures are complemented with lab session where students may deepen their understanding of measures and analyses, learn how to replicate selected official poverty estimates and access key databases.