The Survey of Poverty Condition in the World

The issue of poverty and methods of its measurement are bearing special importance in the area of economic welfare. In this paper which is published as an appendix to the report «World Development Indicators of 2008» an attempt is made to study not only the previous estimation of international poverty line، but to provide a new measures of international poverty line. However in the revised version of international poverty line، through utilizing the new data، this measure has been increased from $1 to $1. 25 per day. It is interesting to note that in the new estimation of international poverty line، certain measures like: increased volume of information disseminated from various countries، revision of measuring the PPP of different countries، designation of international standard for estimating the poverty line in certain countries، emphasize on period of survey، methods of collecting data for goods، and cases without responses and non measurability of some episodes، all have been considered in the model. Thus، the results indicate that the new estimation of PPP in most of the underdeveloped countries particularly the poor countries is higher than the previous one. Though، based on the results of this report، the number of poor people living on the international poverty line of $1. 25 per day are declining from 1980 onwards and the highest reduction belongs to East Asia and Oceania.