A three-week stay for Prof. J. Silber

LISER has been delighted to host during the month of February Jacques Silber, Emeritus Professor of Economics at the Bar-Ilan University (Israel) and Senior Research Fellow at LISER in the framework of its visiting researchers programme.

LISER has been delighted to host during the month of February Jacques Silber, Emeritus Professor of Economics at the Bar-Ilan University (Israel) and Senior Research Fellow at LISER in the framework of its visiting researchers programme.

Professor Silber holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (1975) and is a specialist of the measurement of income inequality and poverty as well as of the economics of discrimination and segregation in the labor market. He is the author of more than hundred scientific papers published in international academic journals and of several books, among which a Handbook on Income Inequality Measurement, The Measurement of Segregation and Discrimination in the Labor Force (with Yves Flückiger), The Many Dimensions of Poverty and Quantitative Approaches to Multidimensional Poverty Measurement (with Nanak Kakwani).

Furthermore, Jacques Silber was the founding Editor of the Journal of Economic Inequality (published by Springer) of which he was the Editor-in-Chief for seven years and is the Editor of a book series entitled Economic Studies in Inequality, Social Exclusion and Well-Being (Springer). He has also edited special issues of the Journal of Econometrics, Economica, World Development, the Review of Income and Wealth, Estudios Economicos and Research on Economic Inequality.

During his stay, Professor Silber has worked on three research projects in collaboration with LISER staff on the topics of ‘Equality of opportunity in health’, ‘Diversity of assets holdings’ and ‘Measurement of transient and chronic poverty’. 

He also gave a lecture entitled “The $1.90 new Global Poverty Line: How was it determined? What are its shortcomings? Are there alternatives?” which was based on the recent revision of the World Bank’s international poverty line which is now set at $1.90 per day in terms of 2011 PPP (Purchasing Power Parity), thus replacing the $1.25 line which was based on 2005 PPP. The presentation started with a short survey of the way the international global poverty line was determined in the past. It was then describe the various stages which led to the new $1.90 line. The talk ended by asking whether it is really important to fix an international global poverty line and suggesting that it might be more useful to find out which factors may allow an individual to get out of poverty and to better understand the process whereby some non-poor end up becoming poor.