Using HIES 2000 data, the paper presents asset based poverty information so
that it is possible to provide incentives in the form of social benefit and fiscal
support to the group of people who needs it most. While income based
measurements and other methods are available to characterise households
under poverty, asset based measurements provide a new insight into poverty
and related welfare studies. By applying fractional polynomial regression, it
is found that there is a significant relationship between total asset and income.
We also find significant results for asset income, profit from enterprises,
other assets (including financial asset, jewelry), house value and other income
(rent, dividend, interest) in total asset. Meanwhile, variables such as religion,
gender of the household head and agricultural income do not significantly
affect total asset. People accumulate asset starting from the age of around 20
years which continues until the age of 80 years. The education level of head
of the household ranges between class V and class X, when such households
move on to higher assets. Except for a few outliers, both asset and income are
invested and managed effectively by households to derive return from such
investment