Year: 2016
Type: report
Abstract: Proxy-means testing is a popular method of poverty targeting with imperfect information.In a now widely-used version, a regression for log consumption calibrates a proxy-means test score based on chosen covariates, which is then implemented for targeting out-of-sample.In this paper, the performance of various proxy-means testing methods is assessed using data for nine African countries.Standard proxy-means testing helps filter out the nonpoor, but excludes many poor people, thus diminishing the impact on poverty.Some methodological changes perform better, with a poverty-quantile method dominating in most cases.Even so, either a basic-income scheme or transfers using a simple demographic scorecard are found to do as well, or almost as well, in reducing poverty.However, even with a budget sufficient to eliminate poverty with full information, none of these targeting methods brings the poverty rate below about three-quarters of its initial value.The prevailing methods are particularly deficient in reaching the poorest.
DOI: 10.3386/w22919
Language: English
Subfield: Safety Research
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: World Bank Group
OpenAlex ID: W3024229999