This paper presents a new family of Stata functions devoted to small area estimation. Small area methods attempt to solve low representativeness of surveys within areas, or the lack of data for specific areas/sub-populations. This is accomplished by incorporating information from outside...

This paper exploits a novel municipal-level data set to explore patterns of convergence in income and poverty in Mexico during 1992-2014. The paper finds that, despite a context of overall stagnant economic growth and poverty reduction, there is evidence of income and poverty convergence at the...

After almost two decades of poverty maps produced by the World Bank and multiple advances in the literature, this paper presents a methodological update to the World Bank's toolkit for small area estimation. The paper reviews the computational procedures of the current methods used by the World...

This paper argues for night-lights data as an alternative data source for measuring spatial inequalities in Africa, where the paucity of subnational income data is persistent. The analysis compares the statistical relationships between income and lights-based measures of spatial income...

Policy makers across the Middle East and North Africa have for many years articulated plans to integrate their people spatially and economically. Wishing to bring communities together and narrow economic gaps, governments have made large capital investments in transport corridors and "new...

Addressing regional disparities is key to unlocking Russia's potential to achieve stronger gains in growth and equity outcomes as well as to improve its institutional environment. While spatial disparities have been an important policy concern in Russia for a long time, inequalities across its...

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is suffering from spatially divergent development. The uprisings of the Arab Spring in part reflected grievances of citizens who were or perceived to have been left behind, particularly by accidents of where they were born. This memo introduces a report...

Bihar, India's poorest state, witnessed impressive yield growth in each of its three principal crops over 2005-17. This paper examines whether a convergence in district yields accompanied the improvement in yields at the state level, thereby reducing regional inequalities in land productivity....

This paper examines whether labor productivity converged across Peru's regions ("departments") during 2002-12. Given the large differences in labor productivity across the regions of Peru, such convergence has the potential to raise aggregate productivity and incomes, and also reduce regional...

Rapid economic growth over the past two decades lifted millions of people out of poverty in Central Asia. But the uneven spread of prosperity left many communities struggling to catch up. To support lagging regions within countries, each of the region's five national governments has made...