The spatial distribution of poverty in Vietnam and the potential for targeting

This paper combines household survey and census data to construct a provincial poverty map of Vietnam and evaluate the accuracy of geographically targeted anti-poverty programs. First, the paper estimates per capita expenditure as a function of selected household and geographic characteristics using the 1998 Vietnam Living Standards Survey. Next, these results are combined with data on the same household characteristics from the 1999 Census to estimate the incidence of poverty in each province. The results indicate that rural poverty is concentrated in ten provinces in the Northern Uplands, two provinces of the central Highlands, and two provinces in the Central Coast. Finally, Receiver Operating Characteristics curves are used to evaluate the effectiveness of geographic targeting. The results show that the existing poor communes system excludes large numbers of poor people, but there is potential to sharpen poverty targeting using a small number of easy-to-measure household characteristics.Household surveys. ,Poverty Research Methodology. ,Poverty alleviation Viet Nam. ,Poverty, Rural Viet Nam. ,

Poverty Mapping with Aggregate Census Data: What is the Loss in Precision?

poverty mapping, small area estimation, Vietnam, aggregation bias

Simulating the Impact of Policy upon Chronic and Transitory Poverty in Rural Pakistan

Anti-poverty programs often seek to improve their impact by targeting households for assistance according to one or more criteria. Since such targeting criteria are often based upon measurements of welfare in a single time period, they tend to be chosen to provide an indication of the long-run level of welfare. However a growing literature shows the importance to poor households of fluctuations in their welfare from month to month and year to year. This paper measures the extent to which poverty is caused by fluctuations in welfare as well as the long-run level of welfare, using the IFPRI household food security panel which tracked 686 households from rural Pakistan between 1986/76 to 1990/91. The article compares the poverty impact of policies designed to increase mean incomes ('growth' policies) and those designed to even out fluctuations of income over time ('smoothing policies') after making an explicit adjustment for measurement error. Since the majority of poverty in our sample is transitory, large reductions in poverty can be achieved by interventions designed to 'smooth' incomes, but reducing chronic poverty in the long-term will require large and sustained growth in household incomes. The income generation process is then modelled as a function of household characteristics and the resulting model is used to estimate the poverty impact of a range of interventions including transfer policies and measures designed to build human and physical capital.transitory poverty, policy targeting, measurement

Poverty mapping with aggregate census data

Spatially disaggregated maps of the incidence of poverty can be constructed by combining household survey data and census data. In some cases, however, statistical authorities are reluctant, for reasons of confidentiality, to release household-level census data. This paper examines the loss in precision associated with using aggregated census data, such as village- or district-level means of the data. We show analytically that using aggregated census data will result in poverty rates that are biased downward (upward) if the rate is below (above) 50 percent and that the bias approaches zero as the poverty rate approaches zero, 50 percent, and 100 percent. Using data from Vietnam, we find that the average absolute error in estimating provincial poverty rates is about 2 percentage points if the data are aggregated to the enumeration-area level and around 3-4 percentage points if they are aggregated to the provincial level. Even census data aggregated to the provincial level perform reasonably well in ranking the 61 provinces by the incidence of poverty: the average absolute error in ranking is 0.92.

Poverty and inequality in Vietnam: spatial patterns and geographic determinants

"This study uses a relatively new method called “small area estimation” to estimate various measures of poverty and inequality for provinces, districts, and communes of Vietnam. The method was applied by combining information from the 1997-98 Vietnam Living Standards Survey and the 1999 Population and Housing Census... Mapping the density of poverty reveals that, although the poverty rates are highest in the remote upland areas, these areas are sparsely populated so most of the poor live in the Red River Delta and the Mekong River Delta... This analysis confirms other studies indicating that the inequality in per capita expenditure is relatively low in Vietnam by international standards. Inequality is greatest in the large cities and (surprisingly) in parts of the upland areas. Inequality is lowest in the Red River Delta, followed by the Mekong Delta. Just one-third of the inequality is found between districts and two-thirds within them, suggesting that district-level targeting of anti-poverty programs may not be very effective... Finally, the study notes that the small area estimation method is not very useful for annual poverty mapping because it relies on census data, but it could be used to show detailed spatial patterns in other variables of interest to policymakers, such as income diversification, agricultural market surplus, and vulnerability. Furthermore, it can be used to estimate poverty rates among vulnerable populations too small to be studied with household survey data, such as the disabled, small ethnic minorities, or fishermen." from Authors' summarysouth east asia, East and Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Inequality, Poverty mapping,

Evaluating the long-term impact of antipoverty interventions in Bangladesh: An overview

This paper provides an overview of a research project that assessed the long-term impact of three antipoverty interventions in Bangladesh—the introduction of new agricultural technologies, educational transfers, and microfinance—on monetary and nonmonetary measures of well-being. This paper begins by setting out the conceptual framework, methodology, and empirical methods used for the evaluation of long-term impacts. It discusses the context of the evaluations and the longitudinal data used. Key findings from the individual papers are then presented, followed by an indicative analysis of the cost-effectiveness of these interventions. The overview concludes with implications for programs and policy.antipoverty interventions, Impact evaluation, long-term impact,

Poverty, Inequality and Growth in Zambia during the 1990s

Zambia, Poverty, Growth, Inequality, Economic reform

Pop Melayu vs. pop Indonesia: marketeers, producers and new interpretations of a genre into the 2000s

Kangen Band, as an example of reclaiming of the derisive term kampungan. In it, I argue that this reclaiming represents an interesting case of genre manipulation, and consider what this can reveal about how Indonesian pop genres are constituted, what they ‘are’ and what they ‘do’. In so doing, I seek to rework existing scholarship relating to Indonesian pop genres and modernity, as well as interrogate some broader theories of genre. In this essay, I extend the argument that Indonesian pop genres are not purely technical categories, they touch on myths of class and nation (Wallach 2008; Weintraub 2010; Yampolsky 1989. As we shall see, in the New Order period, pop music genres reached out to these myths by positioning themselves variously vis-à-vis the capital city, Jakarta. Such positioning, achieved through use of the terms gedongan (a term that strives to infer refinement by stressing the non-masses’ central position in the urban environment) and kampungan (a term that strives to enforce subalterns’ marginal position in relation to the metropolis, see also the previous contribution by Weintraub), continues to haunt the constitution of genre in the post-New Order period, but in novel ways. These novel ways, I argue, may be seen to result from industrial transformation and new systems of knowledge production