Measuring Inequality and Poverty in Bangladesh: An Assessment of the Survey Data

The paper analyses the usefulness of the Bangladesh Household Income and Expenditure Survey data in measuring inequality and poverty trends by comparing the four such surveys between 1991/92 and 2005. It concludes that the survey data provide reasonable measurements of income inequality that shed useful light on the sources of increasing inequality that has characterised the process of growth since the beginning of the 1990s. The surveys, however, do not provide reliable estimates of personal income (or consumption) and their changes over time. Since poverty measurement requires estimates of both income/consumption and their distribution, the survey data do not constitute an adequate basis for reliable measurement of trends in poverty.