Measuring performance: does the assessment depend on the poverty proxy?

Poverty indicators often disagree about whether a person is poor or not. Yet, when it comes to assessing whether a programme is successful in reaching the poor the dominant practice is to use an income poverty indicator. This paper investigates whether the choice of welfare indicator influences the pro-poorness assessment of an intervention. Using the official European Union income and material deprivation indicators, this paper compares the outcomes of three performance indicators for three types of income transfers in six European countries. The analysis indicates that income transfers are assessed as far more successful when the information from both indicators is combined.

Keywords: performance, poverty, income, material deprivation, transfers, European Union, EU-SILC

JEL classification: I32, I38