Publication:
Small Area Estimation of Poverty under Structural Change

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (1014.35 KB)
523 downloads
Published
2018-06
ISSN
Date
2018-06-19
Editor(s)
Abstract
Small area poverty maps allow for the design of policies based on spatial differences in welfare. They are typically estimated based on a consumption survey reporting on poverty and a census providing the spatial disaggregation. This paper presents a new method which allows for the estimation of up-to-date small area poverty maps when only a dated census and a more recent survey are available and predictors and structural parameters are subject to drift over time, a situation commonly encountered in practice. Instead of using survey variables to explain consumption in the survey, the new approach uses variables constructed from the census. The proposed estimator has fewer data requirements and weaker assumptions than common small area poverty map estimators. Applications to simulated data and to poverty estimation in Brazil show an overall good performance.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Lange, Simon; Pape, Utz Johann; Putz, Peter. 2018. Small Area Estimation of Poverty under Structural Change. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8472. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29901 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
  • Publication
    The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29) Abalo, Kodzovi; Boehlert, Brent; Bui, Thanh; Burns, Andrew; Castillo, Diego; Chewpreecha, Unnada; Haider, Alexander; Hallegatte, Stephane; Jooste, Charl; McIsaac, Florent; Ruberl, Heather; Smet, Kim; Strzepek, Ken
    Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.
  • Publication
    South Africa’s Fragmented Cities: The Unequal Burden of Labor Market Frictions
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2026-01-08) Baez, Javier E.; Kshirsagar, Varun
    Using high-resolution administrative, census, and satellite data, this paper shows that South African cities are characterized by spatial mismatches between where people live and where jobs are located, relative to 20 global peers. Areas within 5 kilometers of commercial centers have 9,300 fewer residents per square kilometer than expected, which is 60 percent below the global median. Poor, dense neighborhoods are most affected. In Johannesburg, a 10-percentile increase in distance from the nearest business hub corresponds to a 3.7-percentile drop in asset wealth (a proxy of household wellbeing) and 4.9-percentile drop in employment. In Cape Town, the declines are 4.0 and 3.7 percentiles, respectively. Employment is 87 percent lower in the poorest decile than the richest in Johannesburg and 61 percent lower in Cape Town. These findings suggest that South Africa’s spatial organization of people and economic activity constrains agglomeration and reinforces inequality. This methodology provides a scalable and standardized data-driven framework to analyze spatial accessibility and agglomeration frictions in complex, data-constrained urban systems.
  • Publication
    The Evolution of Local Participatory Democracy in Nepal
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-05) Bhusal, Thaneshwar; Breen, Michael G; Rao, Vijayendra
    Nepal is, according to its constitution, among the world’s most decentralized countries, with a long and complex tradition of local-level public participation. This paper traces the evolution of Nepal’s modern participatory institutions, examining the extent to which they are “induced” by external interventions versus being “organically” rooted in indigenous practices. The paper identifies three broad phases: an initial focus on participation in project implementation; a subsequent phase that expanded citizen engagement; and a third phase of citizen empowerment, culminating in the 2015 federal constitution, which granted unprecedented local autonomy. The analysis yields five key findings. First, over the past 50 years, successive reforms have progressively expanded opportunities for citizens to influence local decision-making. Second, these reforms have integrated traditional participatory mechanisms into formal institutions of local government. Third, although central-level initiatives exist, most participatory platforms continue to operate at the local level. Fourth, the federal constitution has created a new landscape of local democracy, embedding autonomy and accountability. Fifth, although they are still valued in many ethnic and territorial communities, traditional participatory practices are gradually disappearing. The paper concludes by offering policy recommendations to help donor agencies and governments strengthen Nepal’s democratic trajectory. It argues that effective interventions should build on Nepal’s deep participatory traditions while recognizing the constitutional reality of far-reaching local autonomy.
  • Publication
    Institutional Capacity for Policy Implementation: An Analytical Framework
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2026-01-07) Kim, Galileu; Kumar, Tanu; Ramalho, Rita; Russell, Stuart
    State capacity is an important prerequisite for policy implementation, yet at the country level it is difficult to measure, assess, and reform. This paper proposes a focus on institutional capacity: the ability of public institutions to implement the specific policy mandates for which they are responsible. Based on a review of existing literature, the paper defines the different dimensions that compose institutional capacity and groups them into two cross-cutting categories: organizational dimensions (personnel, financial resources, information systems, and management practices) and governance dimensions (transparency, independence, and accountability). The paper proposes measures for organizational and governance dimensions using existing data, shows intra-institutional variation of these measures within countries, and discusses how new data could be collected for better measurement of these concepts. Finally, the paper illustrates how the framework can be used to diagnose the sources of common problems related to weak policy implementation.
  • Publication
    Closing the Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship: Overcoming Challenges in Law and Practice for Female Entrepreneurs
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2026-01-07) Behr, Daniela M.; Xi, Yue
    Despite significant strides toward gender equality, women around the world continue to encounter systemic obstacles that hinder their entrepreneurial success. This paper systematically reviews the literature on the barriers female entrepreneurs face and the solutions proposed to overcome these challenges. It discusses institutional factors, financial factors, human capital factors, and social and cultural factors. The literature overview is complemented by a series of stylized facts that illustrate how overcoming some of these existing barriers is correlated with improved women’s entrepreneurship and female labor force participation, drawing on the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law database as well as the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys. The findings underscore the need for creating an enabling environment where women can thrive as entrepreneurs.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    How Good a Map? Putting Small Area Estimation to the Test
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-03) Demombynes, Gabriel; Elbers, Chris; Lanjouw, Jean O.; Lanjouw, Peter
    The authors examine the performance of small area welfare estimation. The method combines census and survey data to produce spatially disaggregated poverty and inequality estimates. To test the method, they compare predicted welfare indicators for a set of target populations with their true values. They construct target populations using actual data from a census of households in a set of rural Mexican communities. They examine estimates along three criteria: accuracy of confidence intervals, bias, and correlation with true values. The authors find that while point estimates are very stable, the precision of the estimates varies with alternative simulation methods. While the original approach of numerical gradient estimation yields standard errors that seem appropriate, some computationally less-intensive simulation procedures yield confidence intervals that are slightly too narrow. The precision of estimates is shown to diminish markedly if unobserved location effects at the village level are not well captured in underlying consumption models. With well specified models there is only slight evidence of bias, but the authors show that bias increases if underlying models fail to capture latent location effects. Correlations between estimated and true welfare at the local level are highest for mean expenditure and poverty measures and lower for inequality measures.
  • Publication
    Small Area Estimation-Based Prediction Methods to Track Poverty : Validation and Applications
    (2011-06-01) Luoto, Jill; Christiaensen, Luc; Stifel, David; Lanjouw, Peter
    Tracking poverty is predicated on the availability of comparable consumption data and reliable price deflators. However, regular series of strictly comparable data are only rarely available. Price deflators are also often missing or disputed. In response, poverty prediction methods that track consumption correlates as opposed to consumption itself have been developed. These methods typically assume that the estimated relation between consumption and its predictors is stable over time -- an assumption that cannot usually be tested directly. This study analyzes the performance of poverty prediction models based on small area estimation techniques. Predicted poverty estimates are compared with directly observed levels in two country settings where data comparability over time is not a problem. Prediction models that employ either non-staple food or non-food expenditures or a full set of assets as predictors are found to yield poverty estimates that match observed poverty well. This offers some support to the use of such methods to approximate the evolution of poverty. Two further country examples illustrate how an application of the method employing models based on household assets can help to adjudicate between alternative price deflators.
  • Publication
    Republic of Fiji - Poverty Trends, Profiles and Small Area Estimation (Poverty Maps) in Republic of Fiji (2003-2009)
    (World Bank, 2011-09-15) World Bank
    This report presents a detailed analysis of household poverty and its drivers - family, labor and human capital outcomes, social assistance transfers, and geography - based on new expenditure based poverty measures. The report is the culmination of a comprehensive year-long Aus AID funded collaboration between the Fiji Islands Bureau of Statistics (FIBOS) and the World Bank to develop new poverty measures and maps that produce poverty estimates at highly disaggregated levels. The report draws on the last two rounds of Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) (from 2002-3 and 2007-8) as well as the national census of 2007. According to the expenditure based estimates developed in this report, in 2008/09 just over a third of the Fijian population lived in poverty. Poverty in Fiji is driven by multiple factors. The report presents the first national level poverty maps created for Fiji and in the Pacific using the national census, which provides a powerful visual depiction of poverty pockets that can help to ensure that anti-poverty programs reach the poor.
  • Publication
    Estimating Small Area Poverty and Welfare Indicators in Timor-Leste Using Satellite Imagery Data
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-09-28) Purnamasari, Ririn; Wirapati, Bagus Arya; Alatas, Hamidah; Nasiir, Mercoledi
    This report is structured as follows: an in-depth explanation of the FHSAE method is presented in section two. Section three reviews the sub-district level data used in this study, which includes imprecise TL-SLS and DHS direct estimates, as well as satellite imagery data used in this study. The variable selection method used for the FHSAE model in this model is explained in section four. Section five provides the results of the FHSAE exercise on poverty estimates, average real per capita consumption and welfare index, presenting them in the graphical maps. Section six concludes.
  • Publication
    Poverty and Inequality Maps for Rural Vietnam : An Application of Small Area Estimation
    (2010-10-01) Cuong, Nguyen Viet; Truong, Tran Ngoc; van der Weide, Roy
    The objective of the paper is to update the small area estimates of poverty and inequality for rural Vietnam. The new estimates of province and district level poverty for the year 2006, when combined with estimates available for 1999, allow for examination of how poverty has changed in rural Vietnam over the past seven years. The analysis finds that all provinces across the country 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 have also experienced reductions in poverty, albeit at a more modest pace. Provinces and districts with lower levels of inequality in 2006 have seen above average poverty reductions. The authors consider both expenditure and income based measures of poverty and inequality, and find the results to be very similar.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Guidelines to Small Area Estimation for Poverty Mapping
    (Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022-06-16) Corral, Paul; Cojocaru, Alexandru; Segovia, Sandra; Molina, Isabel
    The eradication of poverty, which was the first of the millennium development goals (MDG) established by the United Nations and followed by the sustainable development goals (SDG), requires knowing where the poor are located. Traditionally, household surveys are considered the best source of information on the living standards of a country’s population. Data from these surveys typically provide a sufficiently accurate direct estimate of household expenditures or income and thus estimates of poverty at the national level and larger international regions. However, when one starts to disaggregate data by local areas or population subgroups, the quality of these direct estimates diminishes. Consequently, national statistical offices (NSOs) cannot provide reliable wellbeing statistical figures at a local level. For example, the module of socioeconomic conditions of the Mexican national survey of household income and expenditure (ENIGH) is designed to produce estimates of poverty and inequality at the national level and for the 32 federate entities (31 states and Mexico City) with disaggregation by rural and urban zones, every two years, but there is a mandate to produce estimates by municipality every five years, and the ENIGH alone cannot provide estimates for all municipalities with adequate precision. This makes monitoring progress toward the sustainable development goals more difficult.
  • Publication
    Digital Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13) Begazo, Tania; Dutz, Mark Andrew; Blimpo, Moussa
    All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.
  • Publication
    Small Area Estimation of Monetary Poverty in Mexico Using Satellite Imagery and Machine Learning
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-09) Newhouse, David; Merfeld, Joshua; Ramakrishnan, Anusha Pudugramam; Swartz, Tom; Lahiri, Partha
    Estimates of poverty are an important input into policy formulation in developing countries. The accurate measurement of poverty rates is therefore a first-order problem for development policy. This paper shows that combining satellite imagery with household surveys can improve the precision and accuracy of estimated poverty rates in Mexican municipalities, a level at which the survey is not considered representative. It also shows that a household-level model outperforms other common small area estimation methods. However, poverty estimates in 2015 derived from geospatial data remain less accurate than 2010 estimates derived from household census data. These results indicate that the incorporation of household survey data and widely available satellite imagery can improve on existing poverty estimates in developing countries when census data are old or when patterns of poverty are changing rapidly, even for small subgroups.
  • Publication
    Developing Gender-Disaggregated Poverty Small Area Estimates
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-06-18) World Bank
    Small area estimates of poverty and inequality statistics, through survey-to-census imputation that lets consumption be estimated for each and every household in a census, are useful for at least three reasons. First, they can help improve the effectiveness of public spending, by targeting to prevent the leakage of benefits to the non-poor (and prevent the under-coverage of the poor). If poor people are concentrated in certain areas, spatial targeting by directing extra development projects and public services to those areas, may be more feasible than trying to individually target the poor. Geographic targeting is highly relevant in countries like Timor Leste, where mountainous topography contributes to high levels of heterogeneity. In similar environments, such as Papua New Guinea, the enclave nature of some modern economic development has created high levels of spatial inequality. The basic details are that household survey data are used to estimate a model of consumption, with explanatory variables restricted to those that have overlapping distributions from a census. The coefficients from this model are then combined with the variables from the census, and consumption is predicted for each household in the census. With these predictions available for all households, inequality and poverty statistics can be estimated for small geographic areas (Elbers et al, 2003).2 In the results below, the poverty statistics that are calculated by using the predicted consumption data for each census household are reported at the suco level (n=442). For the headcount poverty rate, the standard errors at the suco level (relative to the poverty index) average one-quarter and so this is a comparable degree of precision to what the survey offered at the municipality level (n=13) for a variable like the poverty severity index.
  • Publication
    Small Area Estimation of Poverty and Wealth Using Geospatial Data
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-07-18) Newhouse, David
    This paper offers a nontechnical review of selected applications that combine survey and geospatial data to generate small area estimates of wealth or poverty. Publicly available data from satellites and phones predicts poverty and wealth accurately across space, when evaluated against census data, and their use in model-based estimates improve the accuracy and efficiency of direct survey estimates. Although the evidence is scant, models based on interpretable features appear to predict at least as well as estimates derived from Convolutional Neural Networks. Estimates for sampled areas are significantly more accurate than those for non-sampled areas due to informative sampling. In general, estimates benefit from using geospatial data at the most disaggregated level possible. Tree-based machine learning methods appear to generate more accurate estimates than linear mixed models. Small area estimates using geospatial data can improve the design of social assistance programs, particularly when the existing targeting system is poorly designed.