Measuring Poverty Rapidly Using Within-Survey Imputations

Poverty is an indicator of paramount importance for gauging the socioeconomic well-being of a population. Especially during or after a shock, poverty estimates are invaluable for assessing the severity of the impact and for identifying which parts...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Pape, Utz Johann, Pape, Utz
Format: Working Paper
Language:English
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/900741611846381624/Measuring-Poverty-Rapidly-Using-Within-Survey-Imputations
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35103
id okr-10986-35103
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-351032022-09-20T00:10:33Z Measuring Poverty Rapidly Using Within-Survey Imputations Pape, Utz Johann Pape, Utz POVERTY POVERTY MEASUREMENT HOUSEHOLD SURVEY CONSUMPTION INEQUALITY SURVEY METHODOLOGY Poverty is an indicator of paramount importance for gauging the socioeconomic well-being of a population. Especially during or after a shock, poverty estimates are invaluable for assessing the severity of the impact and for identifying which parts of the population were most affected. The measurement of consumption-based monetary poverty, however, has traditionally been very time consuming. A household consumption questionnaire usually includes more than 200 items, including food and nonfood items, often requiring more than two hours to administer. This paper proposes a new methodology that combines an innovative questionnaire design with standard imputation techniques. It substantially shortens the time required to administer a household consumption questionnaire to less than 60 minutes by imputing deliberately absent consumption values for items that are not explicitly asked. The proposed methodology makes it possible to derive poverty estimates without compromising the credibility of the resulting estimate, and it performs considerably better than alternative approaches based on reduced consumption aggregates and cross-survey imputations. This new methodology is particularly useful in fragile states given the significant risks associated with lengthy interviews, as well as to rapidly assess the impact of a shock or of a project. It can also be useful to reduce enumerator and respondent fatigue, or to mitigate the problem of high nonresponse rates. 2021-02-04T15:45:32Z 2021-02-04T15:45:32Z 2021-01 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/900741611846381624/Measuring-Poverty-Rapidly-Using-Within-Survey-Imputations http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35103 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9530 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
topic POVERTY
POVERTY MEASUREMENT
HOUSEHOLD SURVEY
CONSUMPTION
INEQUALITY
SURVEY METHODOLOGY
spellingShingle POVERTY
POVERTY MEASUREMENT
HOUSEHOLD SURVEY
CONSUMPTION
INEQUALITY
SURVEY METHODOLOGY
Pape, Utz Johann
Pape, Utz
Measuring Poverty Rapidly Using Within-Survey Imputations
relation Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9530
description Poverty is an indicator of paramount importance for gauging the socioeconomic well-being of a population. Especially during or after a shock, poverty estimates are invaluable for assessing the severity of the impact and for identifying which parts of the population were most affected. The measurement of consumption-based monetary poverty, however, has traditionally been very time consuming. A household consumption questionnaire usually includes more than 200 items, including food and nonfood items, often requiring more than two hours to administer. This paper proposes a new methodology that combines an innovative questionnaire design with standard imputation techniques. It substantially shortens the time required to administer a household consumption questionnaire to less than 60 minutes by imputing deliberately absent consumption values for items that are not explicitly asked. The proposed methodology makes it possible to derive poverty estimates without compromising the credibility of the resulting estimate, and it performs considerably better than alternative approaches based on reduced consumption aggregates and cross-survey imputations. This new methodology is particularly useful in fragile states given the significant risks associated with lengthy interviews, as well as to rapidly assess the impact of a shock or of a project. It can also be useful to reduce enumerator and respondent fatigue, or to mitigate the problem of high nonresponse rates.
format Working Paper
author Pape, Utz Johann
Pape, Utz
author_facet Pape, Utz Johann
Pape, Utz
author_sort Pape, Utz Johann
title Measuring Poverty Rapidly Using Within-Survey Imputations
title_short Measuring Poverty Rapidly Using Within-Survey Imputations
title_full Measuring Poverty Rapidly Using Within-Survey Imputations
title_fullStr Measuring Poverty Rapidly Using Within-Survey Imputations
title_full_unstemmed Measuring Poverty Rapidly Using Within-Survey Imputations
title_sort measuring poverty rapidly using within-survey imputations
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2021
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/900741611846381624/Measuring-Poverty-Rapidly-Using-Within-Survey-Imputations
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35103
_version_ 1764482331658158080