| Abstract: | In this paper, a class of relative and a class of absolute ethical measures of poverty depending on the head-court ratio and the aggregate income gap of the poor are characterized. Among other requirements, an axiom for poverty comparisons of distributions of different dimensions is used. Furthermore, it is shown that the above-mentioned axiom for population change cannot be used to characterize a specific class of absolute ethical poverty indices depending on the absolute number of poor instead of the head-count ratio. |
