Filling Gaps when Poverty Data are Missing: Updating Poverty Estimates Frequently with Different Data Sources in Jordan

Abstract

Tracking poverty trends can help us understand which policies work and which do not, and how efficient they are. Producing reliable poverty estimates by conducting household expenditure (consumption) or income surveys, however, requires significant financial and technical resources. Consequently, consumption surveys are typically conducted every few years by statistical agencies, and poverty estimates are not available in the intervening years during which surveys have not been implemented. Though policymakers often have a strong interest in monitoring poverty trends over time, they typically have little or no information on such trends during the years when consumption data are unavailable. Another challenge to tracking poverty trends is that survey design may change over time, thus making consumption data and poverty estimates not comparable between different rounds. Both of these challenges can be broadly characterized as a missing data situation.

This is a synopsis of World Bank Policy Research working paper # 7043 (Dang, Lanjouw, and Serajuddin, 2014). Interested readers are encouraged to refer to this paper for more detailed discussion and results.