Person:
van der Weide, Roy
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Poverty and inequality mapping,
Inequality,
Poverty reduction,
Welfare measurement,
Spatial econometrics
Degrees
Departments
Development Research Group
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Roy van der Weide is a Senior Economist in the Poverty and Inequality Research team within the Development Research Group of the World Bank. He recently assumed the responsibility of leading the poverty and inequality mapping research within the department. His other research is concerned with the empirics of inequality of opportunity and poverty reduction, axiomatic approaches to income measurement, spatial econometrics, and the transmission of price inflation and volatility. His work has been published in a range of academic journals including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Econometrics, the Journal of Applied Econometrics, and the World Bank Economic Review. He holds a PhD from the University of Amsterdam.
Publication Search Results
1 - 10 of 20
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Publication
Cost-effective Estimation of the Population Mean Using Prediction Estimators
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-06)This paper considers the prediction estimator as an efficient estimator for the population mean. The study may be viewed as an earlier study that proved that the prediction estimator based on the iteratively weighted least squares estimator outperforms the sample mean. The analysis finds that a certain moment condition must hold in general for the prediction estimator based on a Generalized-Method-of-Moment estimator to be at least as efficient as the sample mean. In an application to cost-effective double sampling, the authors show how prediction estimators may be adopted to maximize statistical precision (minimize financial costs) under a budget constraint (statistical precision constraint). This approach is particularly useful when the outcome variable of interest is expensive to observe relative to observing its covariates. -
Publication
Inequality is Bad for Growth of the Poor (But Not for That of the Rich)
(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-07)The paper assesses the impact of overall inequality, as well as inequality among the poor and among the rich, on the growth rates along various percentiles of the income distribution. The analysis uses micro-census data from U.S. states covering the period from 1960 to 2010. The paper finds evidence that high levels of inequality reduce the income growth of the poor and, if anything, help the growth of the rich. When inequality is deconstructed into bottom and top inequality, the analysis finds that it is mostly top inequality that is holding back growth at the bottom. -
Publication
Estimation of Normal Mixtures in a Nested Error Model with an Application to Small Area Estimation of Poverty and Inequality
(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-07)This paper proposes a method for estimating distribution functions that are associated with the nested errors in linear mixed models. The estimator incorporates Empirical Bayes prediction while making minimal assumptions about the shape of the error distributions. The application presented in this paper is the small area estimation of poverty and inequality, although this denotes by no means the only application. Monte-Carlo simulations show that estimates of poverty and inequality can be severely biased when the non-normality of the errors is ignored. The bias can be as high as 2 to 3 percent on a poverty rate of 20 to 30 percent. Most of this bias is resolved when using the proposed estimator. The approach is applicable to both survey-to-census and survey-to-survey prediction. -
Publication
GLS Estimation and Empirical Bayes Prediction for Linear Mixed Models with Heteroskedasticity and Sampling Weights : A Background Study for the POVMAP Project
(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-09)This note adapts results by Huang and Hidiroglou (2003) on Generalized Least Squares estimation and Empirical Bayes prediction for linear mixed models with sampling weights. The objective is to incorporate these results into the poverty mapping approach put forward by Elbers et al. (2003). The estimators presented here have been implemented in version 2.5 of POVMAP, the custom-made poverty mapping software developed by the World Bank. -
Publication
Importing High Food Prices by Exporting : Rice Prices in Lao PDR
(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-11)This paper shows how a developing country, Lao PDR, imports high glutinous rice prices by exporting its staple food to neighboring countries, Vietnam and Thailand. Lao PDR has extensive export controls on rice, generating a sizable difference between domestic and international prices. Controls are relaxed after good harvests, leading to a surge in exports early in the season and rapidly rising prices later in the year. There is thus a strong case for removal of trade restrictions since they give rise to price spikes, keep the long-term price of glutinous rice low, and thereby hinder increases in income from agriculture. Although this is a case study of Lao PDR, the findings may equally apply to other developing countries that export their staple food. -
Publication
Estimating Quarterly Poverty Rates Using Labor Force Surveys : A Primer
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-05)The paper shows how Labor Force Surveys can be used effectively to estimate poverty rates using Household Expenditure Surveys and cross-survey imputation methods. With only two rounds of Household Expenditure Survey data for Morocco (2001 and 2007), the paper estimates quarterly poverty rates for the period 2001-2010 by imputing household expenditures into the Labor Force Surveys. The results are encouraging. The methodology is able to accurately reproduce official poverty statistics by combining current Labor Force Surveys with previous period Household Expenditure Surveys, and vice versa. Although the focus is on head-count poverty, the method can be applied to any welfare indicator that is a function of household income or expenditure, such as the poverty gap or the Gini index of inequality. The newly produced time-series of poverty rates can help researchers and policy makers to: (a) study the determinants of poverty reduction or use poverty as an explanatory factor in cross-section and panel models; (b) forecast poverty rates based on a time-series model fitted to the data; and (c) explore the linkages between labor market conditions and poverty and simulate the effects of policy reforms or economic shocks. This is a promising research agenda that can expand significantly the tool-kit of the welfare economist. -
Publication
Is Inequality Underestimated in Egypt? Evidence from House Prices
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-06)Household income surveys often fail to capture top incomes which leads to an underestimation of income inequality. A popular solution is to combine the household survey with data from income tax records, which has been found to result in significant upward corrections of inequality estimates. Unfortunately, tax records are unavailable in many countries, including most of the developing world. In the absence of data from tax records, this study explores the feasibility of using data on house prices to estimate the top tail of the income distribution. In an application to Egypt, where estimates of inequality based on household surveys alone are low by international standards, the study finds strong evidence that inequality is indeed being underestimated by a considerable margin. The Gini index for urban Egypt is found to increase from 36 to 47 after correcting for the missing top tail. -
Publication
Fair Progress?: Economic Mobility Across Generations Around the World
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018-05-09)Fair Progress? Economic Mobility Across Generations Around the World looks at an issue that has gotten much attention in the developed world, but with, for the first time, new data and analysis covering most of the world, including developing economies. The analysis examines whether those born in poverty or in prosperity are destined to remain in the same economic circumstances into which they were born, and looks back over a half a century at whether children’s lives are better or worse than their parents’ in different parts of the world. It suggests local, national, and global actions and policies that can help break the cycle of poverty, paving the way for the next generation to realize their potential and improve their lives. -
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Poverty and Inequality Maps in Rural Vietnam: An Application of Small Area Estimation
( 2010)The objective of the present paper is to estimate poverty and inequality for rural Vietnam at different levels of aggregation by combining the Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey from 2006 and the Rural Agriculture and Fishery Census from the same year. Using the small area estimation method, estimates at the regional, provincial and district level are produced, and both expenditure and income based measures are considered. It is found that all provinces across the country have experienced a noticeable reduction in rural poverty during the period 1999-2006. Some of the largest reductions in poverty are observed for provinces with poverty rates close to the national average. The poorest provinces are experiencing reductions in poverty, albeit at a more modest pace. Provinces and districts with a larger poverty reduction in the period 1999-2006 tended to have a lower level of inequality in 2006. Results based on expenditure poverty estimates are found to be very similar to those based on income poverty estimates. -
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Method of Moments Estimation of GO-GARCH Models
( 2011)We propose a new estimation method for the factor loading matrix in generalized orthogonal GARCH (GO-GARCH) models. The method is based on eigenvectors of suitably defined sample autocorrelation matrices of squares and cross-products of returns. The method is numerically more attractive than likelihood-based estimation. Furthermore, the new method does not require strict assumptions on the volatility models of the factors, and therefore is less sensitive to model misspecification. We provide conditions for consistency of the estimator, and study its efficiency relative to maximum likelihood estimation using Monte Carlo simulations. The method is applied to European sector returns.