I was quite happy the other days to have received a call from a long time friend whose news I had not had for at least a year. After the usual exchanges, he switched to a slightly more ironic tone and said: “The main reason for my call is to shake you out of your pessimism about the evolution of world poverty. According to the latest figures from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the world poverty rate has fallen dramatically. You should rejoice.”
Indeed, there is nothing that I would have liked better but for my suspicion about how international institutions, dominated by ideologues, interpret data; although the IMF is not the worst of the lot.
The first questions that came to me were: How was “poverty” defined, by how much had the rate fallen, were the numerous pockets of poverty in rich countries included, etc. Of course, the need for answers drove me straight to the figures to which my friend referred.
