Person:
Atamanov, Aziz
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Poverty Measurement,
Income Distribution
Degrees
ORCID
External Links
Departments
Poverty and Equity Global Practice, The World Bank
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Aziz Atamanov is a Senior Economist in the Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank. He has been working on poverty issues, measurement, and distributional analysis in many countries including Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, West Bank and Gaza, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkey. He also co-leads the Middle East and North African Team for Statistical Development. He holds Ph.D. Degree in Development Economics from Maastricht University.
Publication Search Results
1 - 10 of 23
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Publication
Regional Welfare Disparities in the Kyrgyz Republic
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-04)Kyrgyz Republic is an interesting case to study welfare disparities because of pronounced and long existed differences across various regions, rural, and urban areas of the country in spite of economic growth and overall poverty reduction (World Bank 2011). For instance urban poverty stood at 31 percent versus 40 percent in rural areas in 2011 (national statistical committee). The welfare disparities are particularly striking between the growing capital Bishkek and the other regions. Thus, for example, the poverty in the Naryn region is 50 percent versus 18 percent in the capital. The main goal of this paper is to analyze regional disparities in the Kyrgyz Republic by quantifying and separating the gap in welfare disparities in 2011 into two parts: the first part associated with observable characteristics of households and the second part associated with differences in marginal returns to these characteristics (potentially related to geographic factors). Welfare disparities are analyzed between and within the regions. In addition, the role of returns and characteristics in explaining welfare disparities both at the mean and across the distribution using oaxaca-blinder decomposition and its extensions is quantified. The proposed research is an important source of empirical evidence testing the propositions from the new economic geography. This is also the first empirical paper aimed at explaining regional welfare disparities in a country from the Central Asian region where the urban rural gap is an important component of inequality. The paper is structured as follows: it starts from the background information describing welfare disparities, economic growth and structural differences across different areas. The third section briefly discusses the methodology. The results of the decomposition are presented and discussed in the fourth section. The fifth section concludes. -
Publication
Pathways to the Middle Class in Turkey : How Have Reducing Poverty and Boosting Shared Prosperity Helped?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-04)Turkey's poverty reduction performance in the 2000s has been remarkably consistent. Extreme and moderate poverty have fallen considerably since 2003. Between 2002 and 2011, extreme poverty fell from 13 percent to 5 percent, while moderate poverty halved from 44 percent to 22 percent (respectively, defined using the World Bank's Europe and Central Asia regional poverty lines of 2.5 and 5 USD/PPP). Most of this poverty reduction (89 percent) has been driven by growth, a performance consistent with most countries in Europe and Central Asia. This is substantially different form the recent performance of other regions, such as Latin America, where redistribution contributed to poverty reduction almost four times more than in Turkey. Turkey has also achieved sustained consumption growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population, even during the years of the world recession. Turkey's performance in poverty reduction and increased shared prosperity has been complemented by the systematic expansion of the middle class by 20 percentage points. This paper analyzes the main drivers of poverty reduction, shared prosperity, and changes in inequality in Turkey from 2002 to 2011. The analysis shows that labor markets, demographics, pensions, and social assistance have played a critical role in this process. It further explores some of the mechanisms that have facilitated these changes. -
Publication
Poverty Reduction and Shared Prosperity in Tajikistan : A Diagnostic
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-06)Tajikistan was one of the fastest growing countries in the Europe and Central Asia region during the last decade. The economic growth was widely shared by the population and as a result poverty (measured by the national poverty line) declined from 73 percent in 2003 to 47 percent in 2009 accompanied by falling inequality. Consumption growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population -- a measure of shared prosperity proposed by the World Bank- was positive, pointing out that the growth was shared among the less well off. This work presents a diagnostic of shared prosperity and poverty reduction in Tajikistan during 2003-2009. The paper also focuses on quantifying the main drivers of poverty reduction, shared prosperity, and intra-generational mobility (class transitions). Some of the mechanisms of poverty reduction are explored in detail. Finally, main impediments to inter-generational mobility are discussed. -
Publication
Energy Subsidies Reform in Jordan: Welfare Implications of Different Scenarios
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-06)Facing a fiscal crisis, Jordan initiated substantial petroleum subsidy reforms in 2012. The government has also long contemplated how to cut electricity subsidies, which surpass the fiscal burdens imposed by the petroleum subsidies. This paper estimates the impacts of the 2012 petroleum subsidies reform on household welfare and government revenues. It also simulates the distributional and fiscal impacts from ending subsidies in the electricity sector, where the pricing structure is more complex than petroleum prices. The paper looks at the direct and indirect impacts of reform. Moreover, the paper discusses the political economy considerations of reform. While the full removal of petroleum subsidies would have increased poverty, the compensatory cash transfer program the government instituted is estimated to have fully offset the negative impact for the poorer population. The impact of reforms in the electricity sector will depend significantly on the implementation method chosen. A flat increase of tariffs toward cost recovery will put a huge burden on the poorest households. However, a progressive increase in tariffs will generate substantial savings for the government, even with compensatory mechanisms to mitigate the strong negative impact on the vulnerable population. The immediate compensation of the losers from reform appears to be a crucial factor in the successful implementation of reforms in Jordan. -
Publication
One Year in the Pandemic: Results from the High-Frequency Phone Surveys for Refugees in Uganda
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06-28)The URHFPS tracks the socioeconomic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on refugees. The World Bank (WB) in collaboration with the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) launched and conducted the URHFPS. The URHFPS tracked the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic between October 2020 and March 2021. This brief discusses key selected results while providing policy options. Where possible and appropriate, findings are compared to Ugandans by using the national High-Frequency Phone Survey (UHFPS) conducted by UBOS with the support from the World Bank since June 2020. -
Publication
Snapshot of Poverty and Labor Market Outcomes in Lebanon Based on Household Budget Survey 2011-2012
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-12-08)This brief is based on analysis of the 2011-12 household budget survey (HBS) implemented by Central Administration for Statistics (CAS) with technical assistance from the World Bank. The survey was conducted during the period of September 2011 to November 2012, and was stratified across nine regions. The sample was designed to cover 4,805 households, but due to high non-response, it only includes 2,476 participating households. Poverty numbers presented in this note are not comparable with poverty estimates for other years due to differences in the instruments, fieldwork implementation and to some extent sample design; and also due to differences in the methodology for constructing welfare aggregate and the poverty line. All regional estimates in this report should be viewed with caution given concerns about significant levels of nonresponse and relatively small sample sizes within regions. CAS and the World Bank are working together to improve the quality of future surveys. -
Publication
Robustness of Shared Prosperity Estimates: How Different Methodological Choices Matter
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-03)This paper is the first to systematically test the robustness of shared prosperity estimates to different methodological choices using a sample of countries from all regions in the world. The tests that are conducted include grouped versus microdata, nominal welfare aggregate versus adjustment for spatial price variation, and different treatment of income with negative and zero values. The empirical results reveal an only minimal impact of the proposed tests on shared prosperity estimates. Nevertheless, there are important caveats. First, spatial adjustment can change the ranking of households, affecting the distribution of the population in the bottom 40 percent. Second, the negligible impact of spatial deflation holds only if price adjustments are carried out consistently over time. Finally, the treatment of negative and zero income numbers can potentially lead to substantial differences in shared prosperity, depending on the magnitude of negative income and the share of households with negative and zero numbers across years. -
Publication
Measuring Poverty in West Bank and Gaza: Methodology Review Using PECS 2016
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-07)The Palestinian expenditure and consumption survey (PECS) is a multi-purpose survey (on household budget and living standards), based on which official poverty estimates are estimated for the Palestinian territories. The 2016 PECS was implemented for a 12-month period, starting in October 2016. The technical assistance program had two main goals: (i) improving survey design and reducing the time-gap from survey completion to the availability of data for analysis; and (ii) to inform internal discussions and debate on improving the poverty measurement methodology, by taking advantage of newly available data and improved measurement methods. This main objective of this technical review is to consider several different elements of the official poverty estimation methodology with the aim of informing and improving poverty measurement going forward; and to document the availability and identification of new survey and consumer price index (CPI) data that can be used to implement the improvements. The note also explores the implications of alternate adjustments to household size (per capita versus adult equivalent) on poverty. The main recommendations focus on key improvements needed for more accurate estimates of welfare and distributional measures. The review also highlights additional improvements that can be incorporated and where appropriate, affirms the methodological decisions adopted under current practice. This review is organized as follows: section 1 gives introduction. Section 2 briefly discusses the main methodological issues in poverty measurement. Section 3 explains the construction of different components of the welfare aggregate. Section 4 discusses the methodology for calculating poverty lines. Section 5 examines the robustness of poverty estimates to different methodological choices made; and section 6 concludes with recommendations. -
Publication
West Bank and Gaza Poverty and Shared Prosperity Diagnostic 2011-2017
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-08-14)This poverty diagnostic documents changes in welfare and living standards in the West Bank and Gaza over the period 2011 to 2017. Since the last poverty assessment for these territories, in 2011, the economic constraints facing them have worsened. The 2011 poverty assessment covered the period from 2004 to 2009, spanning the end of the second Intifada, as well as the 2007 internal divide in Gaza. The current diagnostic draws on the 2011 and 2017 Palestinian expenditure and consumption surveys (PECS) to assess key welfare trends and highlight areas for further investigation. The principal goal of this is to be timely and actionable, given the worsening outlook in the territories and the urgency of an effective response. -
Publication
Constructing Robust Poverty Trends in the Islamic Republic of Iran, 2008-14
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-09)This paper constructs and tests the robustness of consistently measured poverty trends in the Islamic Republic of Iran after 2008, using international poverty lines based on U.S. dollars at 2011 purchasing power parity. The constructed estimates reveal three distinct periods of welfare in the Islamic Republic of Iran: increase in poverty and inequality between 2008 and 2009, decline in poverty and inequality between 2009 and 2012, and gradual deterioration of both indicators again after 2012. The results are robust regardless of the choice of welfare aggregate, inclusion or exclusion of different components, and spatial adjustment accounting for regional variation in food and housing prices.