This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data


[ Papers | Articles | Software | Books | Chapters | Authors | Institutions | JEL Classification | NEP reports | Search | New papers by email | Author registration | Rankings | Volunteers | FAQ | Blog | Help! ]

Focused Targeting against Poverty Evidence from Tunisia

Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics
Author Info
Christophe Muller () (Universidad di Alicante, Spain)
Sami Bibi () (Faculte des Sciences Economiques et de Gestion de Tunis (FSEGT) and Unite de Recherche en Econometrie Appliquee (URECA))

Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

Abstract

This paper introduces a new methodology to target direct transfers against poverty. Our method is based on observable correlates and on estimation methods that focus on the poor. Using data from Tunisia, we estimate ÔfocusedÕ transfer schemes that improve anti-poverty targeting performances. Post-transfer poverty can be substantially reduced with the new estimation method. The impact of these schemes on the welfare of the poor is also much stronger than the current food subsidies system in Tunisia. Finally, the obtained levels of undercoverage of the poor is so low that Ôproxy-meansÕ focused transfer schemes becomes a realistic alternative to price subsidies, likely to avoid social unrest.

Download Info
To download:

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.idep-fr.org/IMG/document/dt/dt0602.pdf
File Format: application/pdf
File Function:
Download Restriction: no

Publisher Info
Paper provided by Institut d'economie publique (IDEP), Marseille, France in its series IDEP Working Papers with number 0602.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length: 43 pages
Date of creation: Apr 2006
Date of revision: Apr 2006
Handle: RePEc:iep:wpidep:0602

Contact details of provider:
Postal: 2, rue de la Charit� 13002 Marseille
Phone: 04.91.14.07.70
Fax: 04.91.90.02.27
Email:
Web page: http://www.idep-fr.org/
More information through EDIRC

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Yves Doazan).

Related research
Keywords: Poverty; Targeting; Transfers.;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Muller, Christophe, 2002. "Prices and living standards: evidence for Rwanda," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 187-203, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Park, Albert & Wang, Sangui & Wu, Guobao, 2002. "Regional poverty targeting in China," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 123-153, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Datt, Gaurav & Ravallion, Martin, 1994. "Transfer Benefits from Public-Works Employment: Evidence for Rural India," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(427), pages 1346-69, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Bourguignon, F. & Fields, G., 1995. "Discontinuous Losses from Poverty, Generalized P& Measures and Optimal Transfers to the Poor," DELTA Working Papers 95-06, DELTA (Ecole normale supérieure).
  5. Cowell, Frank A. & Victoria-Feser, Maria-Pia, 1996. "Poverty measurement with contaminated data: A robust approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(9), pages 1761-1771, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Deaton, Angus, 1988. "Quality, Quantity, and Spatial Variation of Price," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(3), pages 418-30, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  7. Ahmed, Akhter U. & Bouis, Howarth E., 2002. "Weighing what's practical: proxy means tests for targeting food subsidies in Egypt," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(5-6), pages 519-540. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Bourguignon, F. & Fields, G.S., 1990. "Poverty Measures and Anti-Poverty Policy," DELTA Working Papers 90-04, DELTA (Ecole normale supérieure).
  9. Pollak, Robert A & Wales, Terence J, 1979. "Welfare Comparisons and Equivalence Scales," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(2), pages 216-21, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Besley, Timothy J & Kanbur, S M Ravi, 1988. "Food Subsidies and Poverty Alleviation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 98(392), pages 701-19, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Bigman, David & Fofack, Hippolyte, 2000. "Geographical Targeting for Poverty Alleviation: An Introduction to the Special Issue," World Bank Economic Review, Oxford University Press, vol. 14(1), pages 129-45, January.
  12. Koenker, Roger W & Bassett, Gilbert, Jr, 1978. "Regression Quantiles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 33-50, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Deaton, Angus, 1981. "Optimal Taxes and the Structure of Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(5), pages 1245-60, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  14. Bigman, David & Srinivasan, P. V., 2002. "Geographical targeting of poverty alleviation programs: methodology and applications in rural India," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 237-255, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. van de Walle, Dominique, 1998. "Assessing the welfare impacts of public spending," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 365-379, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  16. Chris Elbers & Jean O. Lanjouw & Peter Lanjouw, 2003. "Micro--Level Estimation of Poverty and Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 355-364, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Ravallion, Martin & Chao, Kalvin, 1989. "Targeted policies for poverty alleviation under imperfect information: Algorithms and applications," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 213-224. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. King, Mervyn A., 1983. "Welfare analysis of tax reforms using household data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 183-214, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Glewwe, Paul, 1992. "Targeting assistance to the poor : Efficient allocation of transfers when household income is not observed," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 297-321, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Creedy, John, 1996. "Comparing Tax and Transfer Systems: Poverty, Inequality and Target Efficiency," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 63(250), pages S163-74, Suppl.. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Galasso, Emanuela & Ravallion, Martin, 2005. "Decentralized targeting of an antipoverty program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(4), pages 705-727, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  22. Schady, Norbert R, 2002. "Picking the Poor: Indicators for Geographic Targeting in Peru," Review of Income and Wealth, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(3), pages 417-33, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  23. Ravallion, Martin, 1989. "Land-contingent poverty alleviation schemes," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 17(8), pages 1223-1233, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  24. Chakravarty, Satya R. & Mukherjee, Diganta, 1998. "Optimal subsidy for the poor," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 313-319, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  25. Baker, Judy L. & Grosh, Margaret E., 1994. "Poverty reduction through geographic targeting: How well does it work?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 22(7), pages 983-995, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  26. Datt, Gaurav & Ravallion, Martin, 1990. "Regional disparities, targeting, and poverty in India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 375, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
  27. Pudney, Stephen, 1999. " On Some Statistical Methods for Modelling the Incidence of Poverty," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(3), pages 385-408, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  28. Foster, James & Greer, Joel & Thorbecke, Erik, 1984. "A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 761-66, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  29. Moshe Buchinsky & Jinyong Hahn, 1998. "An Alternative Estimator for the Censored Quantile Regression Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(3), pages 653-672, May.
  30. Powell, James L., 1986. "Censored regression quantiles," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 143-155, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  31. Glewwe, P. & Kanaan, O., 1989. "Targeting Assistance to the Poor: A Multivariate Approach Using Household Survey Data," Papers 94, Warwick - Development Economics Research Centre.
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Christophe Muller, 2006. "Optimising Anti-Poverty Transfers With Quantile Regressions," IDEP Working Papers 0601, Institut d'economie publique (IDEP), Marseille, France, revised Feb 2006. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Christophe MULLER and Sami BIBI, 2008. "Focused Transfer Targeting against Poverty Evidence from Tunisia," THEMA Working Papers 2008-37, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise. [Downloadable!]
Statistics
Access and download statistics

Did you know? RePEc and its associated services are free for contributors and users, and do not accept any advertising.

This page was last updated on 2009-11-18.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.