Case-wise policy information systems: redefining poverty

Problem definition and program adaptation are difficult tasks in policy analysis. In the analysis of social welfare policy, for example, there are tendencies (1) to ignore many of the factors necessary to distinguish the truly needy, resulting in the misdirection of resources; (2) to focus on individual programs, resulting in unintended consequences arising from program interactions; and (3) to overlook evolutionary changes in the target populations, resulting in obsolete programs. Conventional techniques that simplify data by variables exacerbate these and related problems of analysis. Unconventional techniques that simplify by cases might help resolve them. This paper develops the rationale for case-wise policy information systems, using the measurement and definition of poverty as an example.