Abstract: This book, which was first published in 1973, presents a systematic treatment of the conceptual framework as well as the practical problems of the measurement of economic inequality. Alternative approaches are evaluated in terms of their philosophical assumptions, economic content, and statistical requirements. In a new annexe added in 1997, which is as large as the original book, Amartya Sen, jointly with James Foster, critically surveys the literature that followed the publication of the first edition of the book, and evaluates the main analytical issues in the appraisal of economic inequality and poverty. The technical and non-technical sections of the book are not presented separately, but it is possible to skip or skim through the formal sections and go directly from the intuitive presentation of the axioms to the intuitive explanation of the results.

Keywords: economic inequality, measurement, poverty