The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Markets, Risk and Resilience developed the Cumulative Avoided Losses (CAL) Metric, a single number that quantifies the economic resilience of households over time.  

The CAL Metric quantifies economic resilience in terms of the total compromise of current and future economic well-being as the result of a shock. 

Built around cumulative losses and recovery around shocks, the CAL Metric reflects the actual economic resilience experience of households, as a result of the capacities they develop and the coping strategies they take.  

The CAL Metric measures how closely households maintain well-being compared to their counterfactual situation in which they do not experience a shock.  

Any quantifiable economic well-being measure can be used to calculate the CAL Metric. Income is perhaps the most intuitive and clearest measure to use, but consumption, asset value, caloric intake, and food security measures are examples of others.