This paper examines the performance of a particular method for predicting poverty. The method is a supplement to the approach of measuring poverty through a fully-fledged household expenditure survey. As most developing countries cannot justify the expenses of frequent household expenditure...

The primus inter pares of the UN Millennium Development Goals is to reduce poverty. The only internationally accepted method of estimating poverty requires a measurement of total consumption based on a time and resource demanding household budget or integrated survey over 12 months. Rather than...

The success and failure of any democratic government is gauged in terms of how effectively it has fulfilled its constitutional obligation of enhancing social and economic well-being, particularly the common man. While developed economies use a set of indices to measure well-being, a systematic...

The present research aims to compare and improve the measurement and, therefore, the definition of what "middle class" represents, for a group of countries in Latin America, namely Colombia,Mexico, Peru, Brazil and Ecuador, using a methodology based on the expenditure of households, compared to...

Accurately measuring government benefit receipt in household surveys is necessary when studying disadvantaged populations and the programs that serve them. The Food Stamp Program is especially important given its size and recent growth. To validate survey reports, we use administrative data on...

Large literatures have analyzed racial and ethnic disparities in economic outcomes and access to the safety net. For such analyses that rely on survey data, it is crucial that survey accuracy does not vary by race and ethnicity. Otherwise, the observed disparities may be confounded by...

The definition and operationalization of wealth information in population surveys and the corresponding microdata requires a wide range of more or less normative assumptions. However, the decisions made in both the pre- and post-data-collection stage may interfere consid-erably with the...

This paper deals with the question of selectivity of missing data on income questions in large panel surveys due to item-non-response and with imputation as one alternative strategy to cope with this issue. In contrast to cross-section surveys, the imputation of missing values in panel data can...

The definition and operationalization of wealth information in population surveys and the corresponding microdata requires a wide range of more or less normative assumptions. However, the decisions made in both the pre- and post-data-collection stage may interfere considerably with the...

Overall growth rates mean different things to different people. Hence, they can easily misrepresent what happens to living standards and "quality of life". This paper focuses on patterns and interrelationships between the size and the distribution of the dividends of growth, not on summary...