Assessing asset indices

The use of asset indices in welfare analysis and poverty targeting is increasing, especially in cases in which data on expenditures are unavailable or hard to collect. We compare alternative approaches to welfare measurement. Our analysis shows that inferences about inequalities in education, health...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Filmer, Deon, Scott, Kinnon
Format:	Journal Article
Published:	Springer 2022
Subjects:	ASSET FERTILITY EXPENDITURE FOOD
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37064

id	okr-10986-37064
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-370642022-03-04T05:10:43Z Assessing asset indices Filmer, Deon Scott, Kinnon ASSET FERTILITY EXPENDITURE FOOD The use of asset indices in welfare analysis and poverty targeting is increasing, especially in cases in which data on expenditures are unavailable or hard to collect. We compare alternative approaches to welfare measurement. Our analysis shows that inferences about inequalities in education, health care use, fertility, and child mortality, as well as labor market outcomes, are quite robust to the economic status measure used. Different measures, most significantly per capita expenditures versus the class of asset indices, do not, however, yield identical household rankings. Two factors stand out in predicting the degree of congruence in rankings. First is the extent to which expenditures can be explained by observed household and community characteristics. Rankings are most similar in settings with small transitory shocks to expenditure or with little random measurement error in expenditure. Second is the extent to which expenditures are dominated by individually consumed goods, such as food. Asset indices are typically derived from indicators of goods that are effectively public at the household level, while expenditures are often dominated by food, an almost exclusively private good. In settings in which individually consumed goods are the main component of expenditures, asset indices and per capita consumption yield the least similar results. 2022-03-03T05:17:57Z 2022-03-03T05:17:57Z 2012-02-01 Journal Article Demography http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37064 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Springer Publications & Research :: Journal Article
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
topic	ASSET FERTILITY EXPENDITURE FOOD
spellingShingle	ASSET FERTILITY EXPENDITURE FOOD Filmer, Deon Scott, Kinnon Assessing asset indices
description	The use of asset indices in welfare analysis and poverty targeting is increasing, especially in cases in which data on expenditures are unavailable or hard to collect. We compare alternative approaches to welfare measurement. Our analysis shows that inferences about inequalities in education, health care use, fertility, and child mortality, as well as labor market outcomes, are quite robust to the economic status measure used. Different measures, most significantly per capita expenditures versus the class of asset indices, do not, however, yield identical household rankings. Two factors stand out in predicting the degree of congruence in rankings. First is the extent to which expenditures can be explained by observed household and community characteristics. Rankings are most similar in settings with small transitory shocks to expenditure or with little random measurement error in expenditure. Second is the extent to which expenditures are dominated by individually consumed goods, such as food. Asset indices are typically derived from indicators of goods that are effectively public at the household level, while expenditures are often dominated by food, an almost exclusively private good. In settings in which individually consumed goods are the main component of expenditures, asset indices and per capita consumption yield the least similar results.
format	Journal Article
author	Filmer, Deon Scott, Kinnon
author_facet	Filmer, Deon Scott, Kinnon
author_sort	Filmer, Deon
title	Assessing asset indices
title_short	Assessing asset indices
title_full	Assessing asset indices
title_fullStr	Assessing asset indices
title_full_unstemmed	Assessing asset indices
title_sort	assessing asset indices
publisher	Springer
publishDate	2022
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37064
_version_	1764486532337500160

Assessing asset indices

Similar Items