Targeting the Poor in Vietnam using a Small Area Estimation Method

To estimate the poverty rate at the commune level, the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs firstly collects information on households’ income per capita, and compares their income with a defined poverty line. A household is identified as a poor one if their income per capita is below the poverty line. Then, the poverty rate of a commune is simply the ratio of the defined poor households in that commune. This method can raise questions about the quality of the collected data on income. This paper examines the quality of expenditure data collected in this simple way. It is found that the expenditure data collected in the simple way are considerably lower than expenditure data collected using detailed questionnaires. Thus collection of expenditure or income data using simple questionnaires tends to underestimate the actual expenditure or income. For poverty targeting in small areas such as communes or districts, this paper suggests the application of this small areas estimation method

Impact Evaluation of Multiple Overlapping Programs using Difference-in-differences with Matching

Difference-in-differences with matching is a popular method in impact evaluation. Traditional impact evaluation methods including difference-in-differences with matching often deal with impact measurement of a single binary program. Imbens (1999) and Lechner (2001) extend the matching method to the case of multiple mutually exclusive programs. Frölich (2002) discusses different impact evaluation methods in the similar context. In reality, one can participate in several programs simultaneously and the programs may be overlapping. This paper discusses the method of difference-in-differences with matching in a general context of multiple overlapping programs. The method is applied to measure impacts of formal and informal credit in Vietnam using panel data from two Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys in 2002 and 2004