Person:
Zaidi, Salman
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Poverty,
Inequality
Degrees
Departments
Global Practice on Poverty and Equity
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Salman Zaidi is a Practice Manager at the World Bank in the Poverty and Equity Global Practice covering the East Asia and Pacific Region. He has also worked earlier in the South Asia and Europe and Central Asia regions. Prior to joining the World Bank, Mr. Zaidi worked for the Aga Khan Rural Support Program in Pakistan. He holds an M. Phil in Economics from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar at Nuffield College.
Publication Search Results
1 - 8 of 8
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Publication
Guidelines for Constructing Consumption Aggregates for Welfare Analysis
( 2002-05)An analyst using household survey data to construct a welfare metric is often confronted with onfronted with An analyst using household survey data to construct a welfare metric is often confronted with a number of theoretical and practical problems. What components should be included in the overall welfare measure? Should differences in tastes be taken into account when making comparisons across people and households? How best should differences in cost-of-living and household composition be taken into consideration? Starting with a brief review of the theoretical framework underpinning typical welfare analysis undertaken based on household survey data, this paper provides some practical guidelines and advice on how best to tackle such problems. It outlines a three-part procedure for constructing a consumption-based measure of individual welfare: 1) aggregation of different components of household consumption to construct a nominal consumption aggregate; 2) construction of price indices to adjust for differences in prices faced by households; and 3) adjustment of the real consumption aggregate for differneces in household composition. Examples based on survey data fro eight countries--Ghana, Vietnam, Nepal, the Kyrgyz Republic, Ecuador, South Africa, Panama, and Brazil--are used to illustrate the various steps involved in constructing the welfare measure, and the STATA programs used for this purpose are provided in the appendix. The paper also includes examples of some analytic techniques used to examine the robustness of the estimated welfare measure to underlying assumptions. -
Publication
Tajikistan - Economic and Distributional Impact of Climate Change
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-04)Tajikistan is highly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of global climate change, as it already suffers from low agricultural productivity, water stress, and high losses from disasters. Public awareness of the multiple consequences of climate change is high, with possible impacts on health, natural disasters, and agriculture of greatest public concern. Climate change can potentially deepen poverty by lowering agricultural yields, raising food prices, and increasing the spread of water-borne diseases as well as the frequency and severity of disasters. Regions with greater dependence on agriculture and lower socioeconomic indicators, particularly the east mountain area of the Region of Republican Subordination (RRS), the Southern Sughd hills, and Khatlon hills and lowlands, are most vulnerable to climate change, with rural areas more at risk than urban locations. Faster socioeconomic development is the best tool for adaptation, since greater income diversification, improved health and education, and better access to services and infrastructure enhance the capacity of households, particularly the poor, for autonomous adaptation. -
Publication
Satisfaction with Life and Service Delivery in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union : Some Insights from the 2006 Life in Transition Survey
(World Bank, 2009)The main objective of the Life in Transition Survey (LiTS) was to assess the impact of transition on people, and so the survey questionnaire covered four main themes. First, it collected personal information on aspects of material well-being, including household expenditures, possession of consumer goods such as a car or mobile phone, and access to local public services and utilities. Second, the survey included measures of satisfaction and attitudes towards economic and political reforms as well as public service delivery. Third, the LiTS captured individual 'histories' through transition from around 1989 to the present, especially key events and episodes that may have influenced their attitudes towards reforms, and collected information on individuals; family background, on their employment situation, and on coping strategies during transition. Finally, the survey also attempted to capture the extent to which crime and corruption are affecting peoples' lives, and the extent to which individuals' trust in other people and in state institutions has changed over time. This volume presents the main findings of three studies by World Bank economists using data from the 2006 LiTS. Chapter one examines quantitative and qualitative dimensions welfare in countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, with 'satisfaction with life' being the key welfare measure used. Chapter two analyzes socioeconomic characteristics of different income groups across countries, and shows how the welfare measure derived from the LiTS provides a very useful and effective means to measure household welfare and/or rank households by relative economic status, both within as well as across countries. Finally, chapter three focuses on three interlinked questions: (i) why are some people more likely than others to use publicly provided health services? (ii) What are some of the key influences on users' satisfaction with quality and efficiency of medical treatment received? And (iii) how does the prevalence of informal payments impact people's decision on using publicly provided health services, and upon use, the level of satisfaction with services received? -
Publication
Governance and Public Service Delivery in Europe and Central Asia : Unofficial Payments, Utilization and Satisfaction
( 2012-03-01)Using data from the 2010 Life in Transition Survey, this paper examines the levels of citizens' satisfaction with public service delivery in Europe and Central Asia and identifies some factors that may help explain variation in utilization and levels of satisfaction with service delivery. It finds satisfaction with public service delivery in Europe and Central Asia to be relatively high, and, despite the adverse economic and social impact of the recent global economic crisis, to have risen since 2006 in most countries in the region. However, the level of satisfaction with public service delivery in Eastern European and Central Asian countries in 2010 remains lower than in Western European comparator countries. Although the Life in Transition Survey does not provide specific objective measures of service delivery quality and efficiency, the data provide three important clues that may help explain why satisfaction is lower in transition countries than in western comparators: (i) relatively higher utilization of public services in Eastern European and Central Asian countries, (ii) relatively higher reported prevalence of unofficial payments, and (iii) relatively underdeveloped mechanisms for grievance redress. -
Publication
Subjective Perceptions of the Impact of the Global Economic Crisis in Europe and Central Asia : The Household Perspective
( 2012-03-01)This paper analyzes the subjective impact of the global economic crisis on households in Europe and Central Asia and relates subjective impacts to consumption, actual shocks, and coping strategies, using the 2010 Life in Transition Survey. Two-thirds of respondents in Europe and Central Asia report their household was subjectively affected, primarily through the labor market. The findings underscore the limitations of cross-country comparisons of subjective perceptions, due to reporting biases. Within countries, richer households felt a decline in their relative income position, consistent with evidence from household budget surveys that the crisis reduced the consumption of the middle and upper classes. But the analysis also finds that poorer households report being (subjectively) affected by the crisis more. Differences in the feasibility of coping strategies may help explain variations in subjective perceptions: the poorest were forced to reduce their staple food consumption and health spending, and tended to depend on public safety nets. Richer households had more options to cope, pursuing so-called "active strategies" (such as increasing their labor supply), borrowing, and cutting spending on non-essentials. Transition countries differed significantly from western European comparator countries in that public safety nets had lower coverage, private safety nets and informal insurance mechanisms could not meet the shortfall in income, and a large proportion of their populations reduced the consumption of basic necessities. The paper finds subjective perceptions of the impact of the crisis to be relevant to socio-political outcomes: the harder the impact, the lower the life satisfaction level and the more negative the assessment of government performance. -
Publication
Tajikistan : Key Priorities for Climate Change Adaptation
( 2010-11-01)How should Tajikistan adapt to ongoing and future climate change, in particular given the many pressing development challenges it currently faces? The paper argues that for developing countries like Tajikistan, faster economic and social development is the best possible defense against climate change. It presents some key findings from a recent nationally representative household survey to illustrate the strong public support for more climate change related spending on better management of water resources, disaster management, agriculture, and public health--four key sectors that the government's latest poverty reduction strategy identifies as being especially important from a climate change perspective. Finally, the paper argues that, as important as project-based adaptation measures may be, it is imperative that they be supported by an overall policy framework that provides a truly enabling environment to facilitate faster climate change adaptation. -
Publication
Main Drivers of Income Inequality in Central European and Baltic Countries : Some Insights from Recent Household Survey Data
( 2009-01-01)Present levels of income inequality in Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia remain considerably higher than their pre-transition levels, although the relative pace of change over time has varied quite a bit across countries. Using data from the 2006 European Union Survey of Income and Living Conditions, this paper finds that prevailing levels of income inequality in these countries continue to be low by international standards, and that this is in large part due to the very high redistributive impact of direct taxes and public transfers. In addition to the instrumental role of tax and transfer policies in redistributing income, the paper highlights the important role played by differences in education levels and labor market participation rates in explaining observed inequalities across people and across different regions (although not in explaining observed differences across countries). The paper includes an analysis of key factors that help explain observed variation across countries in the level of public support for redistribution, including peoples' economic background and relative success in life, whether they perceive poverty to be associated with factors within or outside the control of those it afflicts (for example, laziness/lack of willpower vs. injustice in society). -
Publication
The Foreign-born Population in the European Union and Its Contribution to National Tax and Benefit Systems : Some Insights from Recent Household Survey Data
( 2009-04-01)Despite the purported surge in internal migration following the 2004 enlargement of the European Union, data from the 2006 European Union Survey of Income and Living Conditions show that internal migrants are a relatively small share of the European Union's population. Depending on the exact definition used, only about 1 to 2 percent of the population of European Union-13 countries (members prior to the 2004 enlargement, not including Germany and Luxembourg) were born in other European Union countries, while the corresponding share for European Union-4 countries (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Slovakia) is even lower. By contrast, about 6 percent of the population of European Union-13 countries was born outside the European Union. On examining the demographic and socio-economic background of the migrant population (both from within as well as outside the European Union), this paper finds that migrants tend to include a concentration of both low as well as highly educated workers. Both sets of migrants uniformly contribute to raising the working-age population of receiving countries. Using data on average incomes and taxes paid and benefits received by migrant and non-migrant households, the authors find no evidence to support the contention that migrant workers contribute much less in taxes than the native-born population, or consume significantly higher benefits. On the contrary, our calculations suggest that migrant workers make a net contribution of approximately 42 billion euros to the national tax and benefit systems of European Union-13 countries.