ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the existing literature to provide an overview of the theories and empirical studies of multidimensional poverty. This overview will justify the method used in the following chapters of this book to measure poverty in China. The chapter is organised as follows. Section 2.1 discusses reasons why an understanding of multidimensional poverty is essential in a rapidly developing country like China, Section 2.2 reviews theories related to the measurement of multidimensional poverty, Section 2.3 presents two important problems which should be justified before measurement, Section 2.4 shows the methods that are used to calculate multidimensional poverty and Section 2.5 reviews some empirical studies of multidimensional poverty.
