Robust Multidimensional Spatial Poverty Comparisons in Ghana, Madagascar, and Uganda

Spatial poverty comparisons are investigated in three African countries using multidimensional indicators of well-being. The work is analogous to the univariate stochastic dominance literature in that it seeks poverty orderings that are robust to the choice of multidimensional poverty lines and indices. In addition, the study seeks to ensure that the comparisons are robust to aggregation procedures for multiple welfare variables. In contrast to earlier work, the methodology applies equally well to what can be defined as union, intersection, and intermediate approaches to dealing with multidimensional indicators of well-being. Furthermore, unlike much of the stochastic dominance literature, this work computes the sampling distributions of the poverty estimators to perform statistical tests of the difference in poverty measures. The methods are applied to two measures of well-being, the log of household expenditures per capita and children's height-forage z scores, using data from the 1988 Ghana Living Standards Study survey, the 1993 National Household Survey in Madagascar, and the 1999 National Household Survey in Uganda. Bivariate poverty comparisons are at odds with univariate comparisons in several interesting ways. Most important, it cannot always be concluded that poverty is lower in urban areas in one region compared with that in rural areas in another, even though univariate comparisons based on household expenditures per capita almost always lead to that conclusion.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Duclos, Jean-Yves, Sahn, David, Younger, Stephen D.
Format:	Journal Article biblioteca
Language:	English en_US
Published:	Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank 2006-04-06
Subjects:	CENTRAL REGION, CONFLICT, COVARIANCE MATRIX, CUMULATIVE DISTRIBUTION, DECOMPOSABLE POVERTY, DECOMPOSABLE POVERTY MEASURES, DEFINITIONS OF POVERTY, DENSITY FUNCTION, DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS, DEVELOPING COUNTRIES, DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH, DIMENSIONAL POVERTY, DIMENSIONS OF POVERTY, DISTRIBUTION FUNCTION, ECOLOGICAL ZONES, ECONOMIC POLICIES, ECONOMIC POLICY, ECONOMIC SURVEYS, ECONOMICS, EMPIRICAL WORK, FOOD MARKETS, HEADCOUNT POVERTY, HOUSEHOLD SURVEY, HOUSEHOLD SURVEYS, HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX, HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT, INCOME, INCOME DIMENSION, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, INCOME GROWTH, INCOME POVERTY, INEQUALITY, LIFE EXPECTANCY, LIVING STANDARDS, MALNUTRITION, MEASUREMENT OF POVERTY, MEASURING POVERTY, 0 HYPOTHESIS, NUTRITION, NUTRITIONAL STATUS, POLICY DISCUSSION, POLITICAL REGIONS, POOR, POOR COUNTRIES, POVERTY ANALYSIS, POVERTY COMPARISONS, POVERTY INCIDENCE, POVERTY INDEX, POVERTY INDICES, POVERTY LINE, POVERTY LINES, POVERTY MEASURE, POVERTY MEASUREMENT, POVERTY MEASURES, POVERTY RATE, POVERTY RATES, PUBLIC POLICY, RURAL, RURAL AREA, RURAL AREAS, RURAL POVERTY, RURAL URBAN NATIONAL, STANDARD DEVIATION, URBAN AREAS, VULNERABLE GROUPS, WELFARE INDICATORS, WELFARE MEASURE,
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2006/01/17753340/robust-multidimensional-spatial-poverty-comparisons-ghana-madagascar-uganda http://hdl.handle.net/10986/16467
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