Martin Ravallion: Measuring Poverty, Shaping Policy
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This special issue celebrates the remarkable contributions of Martin Ravallion to the field of development economics—and especially his lasting impact on the Development Research Group at the World Bank. The papers featured here were selected from an open call for a conference held in Martin’s honor, co-hosted by Georgetown University and the World Bank, as well as from a symposium organized by Monash University and the Bangladesh Institute for Development Studies. Martin was one of the most influential development economists of his generation. Over more than four decades, he transformed the way poverty is measured, understood, and addressed. His research brought together methodological rigor, deep empirical insight, and a profound moral commitment to improving the lives of the world’s poorest people. His work shaped academic debates, informed global policy, and laid the empirical foundations for poverty-reduction strategies across the globe. Martin’s most widely known contribution is his role in constructing the international poverty line, widely known as the “one-dollar-a-day” line. In a seminal series of papers (Ravallion, Datt, and van de Walle 1991; Chen and Ravallion 2001), he developed a method to compare poverty consistently across countries using purchasing-power parity exchange rates. The original line was anchored in the national poverty lines of the poorest countries and has been subsequently regularly revised to reflect the updates of those national poverty lines and to keep purchasing power parity. This methodology became the basis for the World Bank’s global poverty monitoring and helped frame the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals. Martin also made fundamental theoretical contributions to the understanding of poverty measurement and poverty and inequality dynamics. His pioneering papers introduced a framework to analyze how growth affects poverty (Ravallion and Huppi 1991; Ravallion 1992; Datt and Ravallion 1992). He showed that while economic growth is typically poverty reducing, its impact depends crucially on initial inequality and the nature of the growth process. This led him to develop the concept of “pro-poor growth,” as graphically formalized by “growth incidence curves,” to measure how much growth accrues to different parts of the income distribution (Ravallion and Chen 2003). In particular, he discovered that high initial levels of poverty tended to make subsequent growth less pro-poor (Ravallion 2012). In later work, he developed a poverty measure that accounted for both absolute and relative pro-poor trajectories (Ravallion and Chen 2011, 2019) and laid the ground to track progress towards raising the consumption floor of the poorest (Ravallion 2016a). Another central theme in Martin’s work was the evaluation and design of antipoverty and social protection programs. He consistently explored the trade-offs between protection and promotion (Ravallion 2006), as well as the strengths and limitations of targeting in reaching the poorest (Ravallion 2009a). Martin was also an early advocate for using randomized evaluations and quasi-experimental methods to assess policy impact—while warning against an overly rigid focus on methodology at the expense of real-world relevance (Ravallion 2009b). Martin’s influence extended far beyond his research. During his tenure as director of the Development Research Group at the World Bank, he set the agenda for empirical development economics and mentored dozens of researchers, some of whom have authored the papers published in this special issue. Equally notable was his commitment to engaging with the ethical dimensions of poverty. In his writing and public commentary, Martin argued for putting the poor at the center of the development process—not as data points, but as agents whose experiences should inform research and policy. He frequently challenged technocratic complacency and was a strong advocate for transparency in poverty measurement and development metrics. His 2016 book, The Economics of Poverty, synthesized decades of work into a comprehensive and accessible narrative, blending theory, history, data, and policy discussion (Ravallion 2016b). It remains one of the most widely used references for both students and practitioners in the field. Martin passed away in 2022, leaving behind a legacy of work that continues and will continue to shape global development for years to come. His ideas and methods remain foundational in economics, and his influence can be seen in the work of scholars, policymakers, and international institutions. Few economists have done more to ensure that the world’s poor are seen, counted, and heard. Deon Filmer (corresponding author) is the director of the Development Research Group at the World Bank, Washington, DC, USA; his email address is [email protected].
Source: The World Bank Economic Review
DOI: 10.1093/wber/lhaf034
Author: Deon Filmer
Institutions: World Bank, World Bank Group
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,986
OpenAlex ID: W4417522074