Ha, I didn't even realize you were here!

Let me repeat, Bravo Prof @oliviersterck.bsky.social !

Thank you so much for sharing! All welcome. There will be a Q&A after the projection of the documentary.

Documentary "Refugee Stories" premieres at the DOCVILLE documentary film festival in Leuven, Belgium on 26 March 2026 @oliviersterck.bsky.social

Documentary "Refugee Stories" premieres at the DOCVILLE documentary film festival in Leuven, Belgium on 26 March 2026. Co-produced by IOB's Olivier Sterck.

Documentary "Refugee Stories" premieres at the DOCVILLE documentary film festival in Leuven, Belgium on 26 March 2026

Documentary "Refugee Stories" premieres at the DOCVILLE documentary film festival in Leuven, Belgium on 26 March 2026

🎬 "Refugee Stories" premieres 26 March at DOCVILLE Leuven
A data‑driven look at daily life in #Kenya’s Kakuma camp, moving beyond stereotypes through 5 personal stories.
Co-produced by IOB's Olivier Sterck
👉 www.docville.be/en/film/2026/refugee-sto...

The objective of my article is not to criticize the points made by @profplum99.bsky.social. This is why, with the limited word count, I focused on the main idea: the idea that poverty should be measured on a spectrum rather than with a poverty line.

To some extent, this is what average poverty does, but it considers 1/income instead of log(income). See the academic paper for evidence on why this functional form corresponds well to empirical evidence on inequality aversion and measurement or other quantities & their reciprocals.

Measures that are distribution sensitive are indeed putting more weight on the poorest and hence more sensitive to mismeasurement at the lower-end of the distribution. It parallels the sensitivity of average income to mismeasurement at the upper-end of the distribution.

Measuring poverty on a spectrum instead of an arbitrary line conveys a more accurate picture of inequality An economist proposes a new method of estimating the scope of poverty in different countries.

A Wall Street investor recently argued the U.S. poverty line should be $140,000 for a family of four, up from $33,000. But an economist says the real problem isn't where we draw the line – it's that we draw lines at all.

What happens when humanitarian aid is cut? YouTube video by Centre for the Study of African Economies

🌟📽️NEW VIDEO

What happens when humanitarian aid is cut?

The CSAE's @oliviersterck.bsky.social (@odid-qeh.bsky.social @refugeestudies.bsky.social @iobua.bsky.social) discusses findings from a study of the effects of aid cuts in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya.👇
www.youtube.com/watch?v=99wS...

Global poverty trends through a new lens Global poverty trends look radically different depending on the poverty line used. A new measure that doesn’t depend on ‘lines’ – the average time needed to earn a dollar – shows that global poverty…

Has global poverty fallen since 1990? Depending on which poverty line you use, the answer ranges from “we’ve made huge progress” to “nothing has changed”

CSAE's @oliviersterck.bsky.social explores global poverty trends in this @voxdev.bsky.social article.

Global poverty trends through a new lens Global poverty trends look radically different depending on the poverty line used. A new measure that doesn’t depend on ‘lines’ – the average time needed to earn a dollar – shows that global poverty h...

So has the fight against global poverty failed? @JPAL

No. Poverty fell sharply … but progress is uneven, driven my massive economic growth in Asia. And measurement matters.

Full article 👉 voxdev.org/topic/method...

👉 Solution: Average poverty = average time needed to earn $1.

In 2024, average time to earn $1 was:
• 1 day in DR Congo
• 2 hours in China
• 85 minutes in the US
• 25 minutes in Switzerland

🌍 Global poverty fell by ~55%, from ~12 hours to ~5 hours to earn $1.

It is because measures based on poverty lines ignore everyone above the line. Someone earning $2.16/day counts the same as someone earning $1,000/day.

This is wrong, and we can do better!

I propose a simple alternative: poverty without a poverty line.

Using the $2.15/day extreme poverty line, poverty fell from 38% in 1990 to 8.5% in 2024.

That’s often cited as a historic success.

But raise the poverty line to $21.5/day or $30/day, and the picture flips (@MaxCRoser).

👉 So… success or failure?

Global poverty trends through a new lens Global poverty trends look radically different depending on the poverty line used. A new measure that doesn’t depend on ‘lines’ – the average time needed to earn a dollar – shows that global poverty h...

📉 Has global poverty really fallen since 1990?
It depends on how we measure it!

New VoxDev article 👉

@voxdev.bsky.social @iobua.bsky.social @odid-qeh.bsky.social @oxfordcsae.bsky.social @maxroser.bsky.social @ourworldindata.org
voxdev.org/topic/method...

Global poverty trends look radically different depending on the poverty line used. A new measure that doesn’t depend on ‘lines’ – the average time needed to earn a dollar – shows that global poverty has fallen sharply, by about 55% since 1990.

Read today's article to learn more:

Global poverty trends from a new lens Global poverty trends look radically different depending on the poverty line used. A new measure that doesn’t depend on ‘lines’ – the average time needed to earn a dollar – shows that global poverty has fallen sharply, by about 55% since 1990. This was driven mainly by income growth in East Asia.

🆕 Global poverty trends from a new lens

Today on VoxDev, Olivier Sterck (IOB - Institute of Development Policy, ODID, University of Oxford) discusses a new measure of global poverty that doesn't depend on 'lines', showing that poverty has fallen sharply: https://ow.ly/VoPr50Y3Bsr

📄𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗣𝗨𝗕𝗟𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 by @kristoftiteca.bsky.social & Yotam Gidron
@egmontinstitute.bsky.social

"Will Uganda’s ‘Open-Door’ Refugee Policy Hold? Aid Cuts and Rising Anti-Immigration Sentiments"

#Uganda #Refugees #ForcedDisplacement #MigrationPolicy #HumanitarianCrisis
𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲👉 tinyurl.com/evrkmay6

🌍 Are you passionate about tackling inequality, climate change, migration, or global governance?
Join our Online Info Session on 15 December.
🔗 Register: https://www.uantwerpen.be/development-studies
#globaldevelopment #sustainabledevelopment #studyabroad #internationadevelopmentstudies

Dollars after taxes that can be used for essential and non-essential spending.
Of course you are welcome to read the paper: it is publicly available here papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4785458

Debates on the 🇺🇸 poverty line are based on a fallacy: that poverty is binary. That below a line, you are poor, above you are fine.

Poverty is continuous and I developed a much better indicator to measure it. A🧵
@washingtonpost.com @ourworldindata.org @adamrose.bsky.social @whstancil.bsky.social

Conclusion: stop debating where to draw the poverty line.

There is no line. Having less is always worse.

Start measuring poverty as a continuous reality — not a binary status.

Ask a simple question: How long does it take people to earn $1?

More here:

Why? Because US inequality is much higher.

Changes in the poverty measure come from two forces: (1) average income and (2) inequality.

In the US, inequality has grown much faster than GDP (except during COVID), pushing poverty up even as income rose.

With this new measure, people in the US need 1.4 hours on average to get $1.

Much more than in the UK, France or Germany... Poverty is much higher in the US despite higher average incomes!

[see the exception during Covid, when the US implemented strong anti-poverty measures]

Poverty is a spectrum, not a switch. In reality, $100/day is better than $75, which is better than $50, which is better than $25…

I developed a measure that reflects this: the time it takes to get $1.

It comes from an idea in physics: poverty = reciprocal of income.

Now take a lower line of $25/day — similar to the US threshold and close to @maxroser.bsky.social’s. With that line, only 11% of Americans are poor. With the WB extreme poverty line, virtually no poverty.

Same people, same data, opposite conclusion. So what is the “true” number?

There isn't one.

The problem is the measure: the poverty headcount (% below the line). Conclusions are too dependent on the line!

Take Green’s line, $140k/year for a family of 4 ($100 pp per day).

With that line, 73% of Americans are “poor”. It tells us more about the line than poverty.

Debates on the 🇺🇸 poverty line are based on a fallacy: that poverty is binary. That below a line, you are poor, above you are fine.

Poverty is continuous and I developed a much better indicator to measure it. A🧵
@washingtonpost.com @ourworldindata.org @adamrose.bsky.social @whstancil.bsky.social

“The weight we carry” Poet Peter Kidi explores the human cost of aid cuts, and the resilience of refugees living between hunger and hope.

www.thenewhumanitarian.org/poem/2025/11...

Why it’s a bad idea to triage refugee food aid when everyone's hungry Blanket food assistance was stopped in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp in August. The impact has been immediate.

Why it’s a bad idea to triage refugee food aid when everyone's hungry

@oliviersterck.bsky.social writes in @newhumanitarian.bsky.social about effects of cuts to food assistance in Kakuma Refugee Camp.
@odid-qeh.bsky.social @refugeestudies.bsky.social

Why it’s a bad idea to triage refugee food aid when everyone's hungry Blanket food assistance was stopped in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp in August. The impact has been immediate.

“Let everyone get the same, even if it's just a spoonful,” a refugee told us after hearing she would soon be cut off from food assistance.

Our research on aid cuts and targeting just published in The New Humanitarian.

www.thenewhumanitarian.org/analysis/202... (@newhumanitarian.bsky.social)