Comparing measures of poverty and relative deprivation: an example for Belgium

This paper presents three different poverty standards. A first approach
takes the disposable income as an indicator of poverty. A second approach uses
the Leyden approach. Finally an aggregate index of deprivation, based on the
observation of consumption events, is constructed through a particular econometric
procedure proposed by Desai and Shah (1988). These alternative measures
are then compared on a sample composed of 6380 Belgian households. Such an
analysis can be expected to provide some further insight into the problem of
measuring poverty, which has been the subject of a recent controversial debate.