Economists such as Mr. Reddy suspect that the World Bank’s methods overestimate the rate of poverty reduction. The World Bank uses income data for some countries, for example, which is higher than consumption and grows at a different rate. But saving for old age or to pay for a daugher’s dowry is not the same thing as improving your current standard of living. Mr. Reddy’s poverty-measurement initiative, the Global Consumption and Income Project (GCIP), has tried to measure consumption better in its poverty calculations. These alternative figures suggest that the World Bank’s old poverty-reduction figures from 1990-2011 were five percentage points higher than they otherwise should have been. The Bank’s new poverty line has decreased the discrepancy between its figures and those of GCIP, but not eliminated it.