threshold of 2100 calories per person per day, and the nonfood poverty lines allow for basic nonfood expenses (estimated as the nonfood expenditure of houscholds who can just afford the food poverty line). These new poverty lines take into account the consumption pattern of the poor population in Lao PDR as well as regional and monthly costs of living differences. Steps involved in the construction of poverty lines are explair-d in detail in Appendix 2. its In this section, we focus on three different dimensions of poverty, viz. incidence, depth, and severity. These three dimensions are assessed using three well- known and widely-used measures of poverty, namely, the head-count ratio, the poverty- gap index, and the squared poverty gap index.'° An analysis of poverty in Lao PDR in terms of these measures follows. Incidence of poverty To begin with, the most commonly used method of measuring poverty is the head-count ratio. It simply estimates the percentage of the population living in households with the per capita consumption less than the poverty line. While the head- count ratio captures the prevalence of poverty and is easy to interpret, it does not tell us anything about the depth or severity of poverty. Table 9: Percentage of poor by province Region / province 1992-93 1997-98 Growth rate Vientiane municipality 338 135 102 Norther region 516 ara ar Phongsaly 0 379 44 Luangnemiha 405 si 48 Oudomxay 7 45.8 66.1 73 Bokeo aa 389 aq Luangohrabang 585 408 72 Huaphanh ns n3 00 xayabouy 24 wa 46 Centra region 450 304 ar '° These measures belong to the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke class of poverty measures; see Foster, Greer and ‘Thorbecke (1984). 4