How to Reduce the Impact of Equivalence Scales on Poverty Measurement: Evidence from Turkey Gianni Betti 1 • Mehmet Ali Karadag 2 • Ozlem Sarica 2 • Baris Ucar 2,3 Accepted: 11 April 2016 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016 Abstract The main aim of the paper is to contribute to the poverty measurement liter- ature by demonstrating a method to reduce the impact of equivalence scales in poverty measurement. This is accomplished by choosing the most appropriate reference household type. The results showed that one adult household is certainly not suitable for being the reference household type. When one adult household is set as the reference, in the range of no equivalence scale and per capita equivalence scale, poverty head count ratio changes from 1 to 48 %, showing the huge effect of the equivalence scale choice. Also the analyses at household size level showed that one adult household type is not convenient to be the reference household type. On the other hand, no clear distinction could be made between central household types, but the importance of choosing a household type close to the center was demonstrated for Turkish data. Keywords Measurement of poverty Á Equivalence scales Á Reference household type Á Turkey JEL Classification I32 & Mehmet Ali Karadag makaradag@gmail.com Gianni Betti gianni.betti@unisi.it Ozlem Sarica ozlemsarica@tuik.gov.tr Baris Ucar ucarbaris1@hotmail.com 1 Department of Economics and Statistics, Siena University, Piazza San Francesco, 7, 53100 Siena, Italy 2 Labour Force and Living Conditions Department, Turkish Statistical Institute, Necatibey Cad. No: 114 Cankaya, Ankara, Turkey 3 Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey 123 Soc Indic Res DOI 10.1007/s11205-016-1335-0