A multiplicity of poverty estimates based on the same data is not an uncommon situation in many countries. Nor is it necessarily an undesirable situation. In the case of Lao PDR, however, it led to some unnecessary confusion on the assessment of poverty in the country. And, in particular, it contributed to the lack of an acceptable benchmark for poverty monitoring, ‘The main objective of this paper is to Gill this void. It seeks to re-analyze poverty and inequality in Lao PDR for 1997-98, and assess changes in poverty levels during 1992-93 to 1997-98, using the LECS data with a view to presenting estimates that can serve as a benchmark for future poverty monitoring, In doing this, it draws upon the work done in both Datt and Wang (2001) as well as Kakwani et al. (2001). The poverty profile for 1997-98 aims to provide the overall estimates of poverty, the distribution of poverty across sectors, geographical regions, provinces and scio-economic groups, and a comparison of key characteristics of the poor with those of the non-poor. A comparison of results for 1992-93 and 1997-98 gives a sense of how average living standards, inequality and poverty levels have evolved over this period. This study develops a new set of poverty lines for Lao PDR, which utilize additional information on monthly food and non-food consumer price indices that were made available by the Lao PDR National Statistical Center. It also allows for rural-urban price differentials based on survey-based estimates of the price of rice, which is the single ‘most important item in the consumption basket of the poor. The new poverty thresholds take account of regional and monthly costs of living differences and are based on calorie requirement of 2100 calories per person per day. The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the primary data sources used for the analysis inthis paper. Section 3 discusses the construction of our measure of individual welfare. Section 4 analyzes the linkage between economic growth and the changes in average standard of living in Lao PDR. Section 5 analyzes the changes in inequality between 1992-93 and 1997-98, while Section 6 discusses the changes in the incidence poverty between 1992-93 and 1997-98. Section 7 attempts to explain the changes in poverty incidence in terms of growth and inequality effects. The rural-urban differences in the incidence of poverty are explained in Section 8. Section 9 presents poverty profiles by houschold’s socioeconomic characteristics. How different are the