Core Poverty, Vagueness and Adaptation: A New Methodology and Some Results for South Africa
基于阿马蒂亚·森的贫困模糊性观点，提出一种运用超赋值论处理贫困模糊性的方法论，利用南非2001年生活必需品调查数据识别核心贫困群体，并探讨适应性问题。
Abstract Amartya Sen has argued that poverty is a vague concept. This paper develops a methodology for applying a framework which uses a ‘supervaluationist’ account of vagueness in the context of poverty. Within this framework people or households are termed ‘core poor’ if there is no ambiguity about whether or not they are poor. The framework is applied using data from a survey on the ‘Essentials of Life’ conducted in three locations in South Africa in 2001. The methodology relates the data to the framework using an insight of Max Black's. While the application of the methodology is, in its very nature, somewhat arbitrary, we illustrate how it can lead to an estimate of core poverty which differs from standard measures of the ‘ultra-poor’ and ‘most deprived’. Finally, the possibility that respondents may have adapted to their living conditions is investigated. A first look at the data does not provide conclusive evidence of such adaptation.