Micro-Level Estimation of Welfare

The authors construct and derive the properties of estimators of welfare that take advantage of the detailed information about living standards available in small household surveys and the comprehensive coverage of a census or large sample. By combining the strengths of each, the estimators can be used at a remarkably disaggregated level. They have a clear interpretation, are mutually comparable, and can be assessed for reliability using standard statistical theory. Using data from Ecuador, the authors obtain estimates of welfare measures, some of which are quite reliable for populations as small as 15,000 households--a "town." They provide simple illustrations of their use. Such estimates open up the possibility of testing, at a more convincing intra-country level, the many recent models relating welfare distributions to growth and a variety of socioeconomic and political outcomes.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Elbers, Chris, Lanjouw, Jean O., Lanjouw, Peter
Language:	English en_US
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2002-10
Subjects:	ANALYSIS OF POVERTY, ASYMPTOTIC DISTRIBUTION, AUTOCORRELATION, BIASES, CALCULATION, CAPITA EXPENDITURE, CAPITAL MARKETS, CENSUS ENUMERATION AREA, CENSUS HOUSEHOLDS, CENTRAL LIMIT THEOREM, CLUSTER CORRELATION, COMPUTATION, COMPUTATION ERROR, CONSUMPTION MODEL, CORRELATIONS, COVARIANCE, DECENTRALIZATION, DEGREE OF INEQUALITY, DELTA METHOD, DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH GROUP, DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH, DISTURBANCE TERM, ECONOMETRICS, ECONOMIC OUTCOMES, ENUMERATION, EQUATIONS, ESTIMATORS, EXPECTED VALUE, EXPECTED VALUES, EXPENDITURE MODEL, EXPERIMENTS, EXPLANATORY VARIABLES, FINANCIAL SUPPORT, FIRST STAGE MODEL, GINI COEFFICIENT, GROWTH MODELS, HETEROSCEDASTICITY, HOMOSCEDASTICITY, HOUSEHOLD LEVEL, HOUSEHOLD SIZE, HOUSEHOLD SURVEY, HOUSEHOLD SURVEYS, HOUSEHOLD-LEVEL, HOUSEHOLDS, HYPOTHESES, IDIOSYNCRATIC COMPONENT, IDIOSYNCRATIC ERROR, INCOME, INDICATOR FUNCTION, INDICATOR OF POVERTY, INEQUALITY MEASURES, KURTOSIS, LEVEL ESTIMATION OF WELFARE, LIVING STANDARDS, MATRIX, MEASURE OF POVERTY, MODELING, MONTE CARLO SIMULATION, NATIONAL INCOME, NUMERICAL INTEGRATION, OUTLIERS, PARAMETER ESTIMATES, PARAMETRIC APPROACH, PERTURBATION, POLITICAL ECONOMY, POPULATION CENSUS, POPULATION PARAMETERS, POVERTY LINE, POVERTY MEASURES, POVERTY RATE, PRECISION, PREDICTION, PROBABILITY, RANDOM VARIABLES, REGRESSORS, RELIABILITY, RESEARCH WORKING PAPERS, RESEARCHERS, SAMPLE DESIGN, SAMPLING ERRORS, SIMULATION, SIMULATIONS, SKEWNESS, SMALLER GROUPS, SPATIAL CORRELATION, STANDARD ERROR, STANDARD ERRORS, STATISTICAL THEORY, SURVEY DATA, TIME SERIES, VARIANCE-COVARIANCE MATRIX, WAGES, WEALTH,
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2002/10/2042224/micro-level-estimation-welfare https://hdl.handle.net/10986/19218
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