Poverty Alleviation through Geographic Targeting: How Much Does Disaggregation Help?
Using recently completed "poverty maps" for Cambodia, Ecuador, and Madagascar, the authors simulate the impact on poverty of transferring an exogenously given budget to geographically defined subgroups of the population according to their relative poverty status. They find large gains from targeting smaller administrative units, such as districts or villages. But these gains are still far from the poverty reduction that would be possible had the planners had access to information on household level income or consumption. The results suggest that a useful way forward might be to combine fine geographic targeting using a poverty map with within-community targeting mechanisms.
Summary: | Using recently completed "poverty
maps" for Cambodia, Ecuador, and Madagascar, the
authors simulate the impact on poverty of transferring an
exogenously given budget to geographically defined subgroups
of the population according to their relative poverty
status. They find large gains from targeting smaller
administrative units, such as districts or villages. But
these gains are still far from the poverty reduction that
would be possible had the planners had access to information
on household level income or consumption. The results
suggest that a useful way forward might be to combine fine
geographic targeting using a poverty map with
within-community targeting mechanisms. |
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