![]() We spoke for hours with him, his wife, his colleagues and friends. In Paris and Amsterdam, we accompanied Ravallion on working visits. Even the fact that you’re reading an article on poverty right now is due to him. This is the first major article ever published about him.Īnd yet this man has also shaped your view of poverty. His English Wikipedia page (the only language in which he has one) contains fewer than 250 words. The Martin? I’ve never even heard of this guy.Īnd there’s a good chance you haven’t, unless you’re a poverty statistician yourself. The Martin who made a mammoth contribution to reducing global poverty. The Martin who put poverty reduction on the map for economists, policy makers, and the general public. The Martin who permanently changed the way we measure poverty, and the way we address poverty. “No, you’re putting me on! You can’t be the Martin.”īut Martin Ravallion is indeed the Martin. Does the statistician know, he asks, that he’s Martin – Martin Ravallion – the man who created that method? The man stares keenly at him. ![]() “Martin’s method,” the man says between mouthfuls of dog. Ravallion asks how exactly he does that, calculate how many people are poor. The Party has made him responsible for calculating the region’s poverty figures. The man says he’s the county’s chief statistician. Ravallion passes the dish to the man beside him, and they strike up a conversation. This kind of lunch banquet is a ritual, even in the poorest provinces, such as here in Guizhou. It’s 2005 and he’s been doing fieldwork for weeks in southwest China. As a foreigner, this earns him huge brownie points. He briefly hesitates, but then Martin Ravallion ladles a hefty portion of dog onto his plate.
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