Odekon compiles Encyclopedia of World Poverty
Associate Professor of Economics Mehmet Odekon has edited the Encyclopedia of World Poverty (2006, Sage Publications), a comprehensive collection of scholarly articles on poverty
worldwide by a variety of authors, including Odekon.
The book, 1,500 pages in three volumes, includes 800 articles as well as cross-references
and bibliographies. Nearly 200 country entries provide statistics on such factors
as mortality, disease, literacy and illiteracy, and rankings on the Human Development
Index and the Human Poverty Index, when available. Other entries cover definitions
and measurement techniques of poverty, which affect public policy.
"It is hard to visualize poverty and the living conditions of the poor without personal
exposure," Odekon writes in the introduction. "Without that encounter, poverty mostly
remains a statistic that we are lucky not to be part of, and dealing with the corresponding
human condition is then usually left to those with the willingness and imagination
to think about it."
Odekon witnessed poverty firsthand when, as a high school student in the 1960s, he
volunteered for a construction project in Turkey. "Unfortunately the experience was
more helpful for me in drawing the future path of my professional career than it was
for the villagers," who lacked just about everything we associate with modern life.
Odekon, whose other works include The Costs of Economic Liberalization in Turkey (2005, Lehigh University Press) writes that "poverty is anything but a statistic,
and not all aspects of it are quantifiable," yet statistics are necessary to comprehend
the scope of the problem and to posit solutions.
More information at the publisher's Web site.
