Learning About the Multidimensional Poverty Index at Sidney Sussex – by Grace – Economics

Tuesday, 27 July 

After being at Sidney Sussex, Cambridge, for over a week now, we’ve all started to fall into the routine and patterns of the day. I woke up early this morning, and after a delicious cooked breakfast and coffee with my friends, I was ready to finish up reading a few pages on economic development and Sen’s capability approach for this morning’s academic session. Every academic session here at Immerse has challenged me to think and discover new ways, expanding my knowledge to help me become a more well-rounded economist. What I found most interesting in this mornings session was learning about different measures of poverty, from the Gini co-efficient to the multidimensional poverty index. It demonstrated that poverty is more than just income and wealth that classical theory would suggest and sparked motivation into how to tackle the key problem of poverty. 

We walked out into Cambridge for lunch, picking up some sushi and mochi from Itsu, which we ate in the park and then headed back to practice for the talent show on Thursday. At 1:30 pm, the next round of academic sessions began, wherein we applied our knowledge from the MPI with the Alkire-Foster method, calculating Headcount ratios, Intensities and MPI of various countries, alongside looking at OPHI resources. After a speedy turnaround, the other students and I took part in a ‘dragons den’ style game by developing app ideas to pitch for investment. My team won the overall prize for our idea ‘ecomerge’, winning a pizza express voucher. 

Soon it was 6:30 pm and time for dinner once again, sitting down outside in the beautiful gardens. Feeling a burst of motivation combined with a lot of work, we decided to go back to our rooms to study. Later we decided to go on a sunset walk around Cambridge, which ended up getting us completely soaked, as well as watching some more of a film together with popcorn and snacks. At 10:25 pm, we headed back, and I went to sleep excited for the next day to learn about feminist economic theories. I don’t want my time here to end just yet. 

Grace, Sidney Sussex, Session 3 – Economics

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