IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ete/ceswps/ces9819.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Changes in Poverty in Rural Ethiopia 1989-1995: Measurement, Robustness Tests and Decomposition

Author

Listed:
  • Stefan Dercon
  • Pramila Krishnan

Abstract

Assessing changes in poverty levels over time is bedevilled by problems in questionnaire design, the choice of the poverty line, the exact timing of the survey and uncertainty about the appropriate cost-of-living deflators. In this paper, we focus on testing the robustness of measured changes in poverty to these common problems, using household panel data collected in rural Ethiopia in 1989, 1994 and 1995: in particular, we implement a simple graphical technique for assessing the impact of uncertainity in measured inflation rates. We find that poverty declined between 1989 and 1994, but remained virtually unchanged between 1994 and 1995. However, the last result disguises substantial seasonal fluctuations in 1994. We also find that households with substantial human and physical capital, and better access to roads and towns have both lower poverty levels and are more likely to get better off over time. Human capital and access to roads and towns also reduce the fluctuations in poverty across the seasons.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefan Dercon & Pramila Krishnan, 1998. "Changes in Poverty in Rural Ethiopia 1989-1995: Measurement, Robustness Tests and Decomposition," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven ces9819, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
  • Handle: RePEc:ete:ceswps:ces9819
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://lirias.kuleuven.be/bitstream/123456789/501299/1/DPS9819.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Korir, Lilian & Rizov, Marian & Ruto, Eric, 2020. "Food security in Kenya: Insights from a household food demand model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 99-108.
    2. Vincent Leyaro & Oliver Morrissey & Trudy Owens, 2010. "Food Price Changes and Consumer Welfare in Tanzania 1991 – 2007," Discussion Papers 10/01, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ete:ceswps:ces9819. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: library EBIB (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://feb.kuleuven.be/Economics/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.