IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2016-179.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Optimal transfers with distribution regressions: An application to Egypt at the dawn of the XXIst century

Author

Listed:
  • Christophe Muller

Abstract

Social programmes for poverty alleviation involve eligibility rules and transfer rules that often proxy-means tests. We propose to specify the estimator in connection with the poverty alleviation problem. Three distinct stages emerge from the optimization analysis: the identification of the poor, the ranking of their priorities and the calculus of the optimal transfer amount. These stages are implemented simultaneous by using diverse distribution regression methods to generate fitted-values of living standards plugged into the poverty minimization programme to obtain the transfer amounts.

Suggested Citation

  • Christophe Muller, 2016. "Optimal transfers with distribution regressions: An application to Egypt at the dawn of the XXIst century," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2016-179, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2016-179
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/wp2016-179.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Galiani, Sebastian & McEwan, Patrick J., 2013. "The heterogeneous impact of conditional cash transfers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 85-96.
    2. Hansen, Lars Peter, 1982. "Large Sample Properties of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 1029-1054, July.
    3. Immonen, Ritva, et al, 1998. "Tagging and Taxing: The Optimal Use of Categorical and Income Information in Designing Tax/Transfer Schemes," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 65(258), pages 179-192, May.
    4. Richard Blundell & Monica Costa Dias, 2009. "Alternative Approaches to Evaluation in Empirical Microeconomics," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(3).
    5. Chone, Philippe & Laroque, Guy, 2005. "Optimal incentives for labor force participation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2-3), pages 395-425, February.
    6. James J. Heckman & Jeffrey Smith & Nancy Clements, 1997. "Making The Most Out Of Programme Evaluations and Social Experiments: Accounting For Heterogeneity in Programme Impacts," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(4), pages 487-535.
    7. Emmanuel Saez, 2002. "Optimal Income Transfer Programs: Intensive versus Extensive Labor Supply Responses," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 1039-1073.
    8. Koenker,Roger, 2005. "Quantile Regression," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521845731, January.
    9. Adama Bah & Samuel Bazzi & Sudarno Sumarto & Julia Tobias, 2019. "Finding the Poor vs. Measuring Their Poverty: Exploring the Drivers of Targeting Effectiveness in Indonesia," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 33(3), pages 573-597.
    10. Besley, Timothy J & Kanbur, S M Ravi, 1988. "Food Subsidies and Poverty Alleviation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 98(392), pages 701-719, September.
    11. 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.
    12. Norbert R. Schady, 2002. "Picking the Poor: Indicators for Geographic Targeting in Peru," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 48(3), pages 417-433, September.
    13. Yosr Abid & Cathal O'Donoghue & Denisa Sologon, 2016. "Decomposing Welfare Inequality in Egypt and Tunisia: an Oaxaca-Blinder Based Approach," Working Papers 1015, Economic Research Forum, revised Jun 2016.
    14. Sergio Firpo & Nicole M. Fortin & Thomas Lemieux, 2009. "Unconditional Quantile Regressions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 953-973, May.
    15. Kapteyn, Arie & Aguila, Emma & Tassot, Caroline, 2012. "Targeting Cash Transfer Programs for an Older Population," Working Papers 950, RAND Corporation.
    16. 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.
    17. Charles F. Manski, 2004. "Statistical Treatment Rules for Heterogeneous Populations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(4), pages 1221-1246, July.
    18. Bigman, David & Fofack, Hippolyte, 2000. "Geographical Targeting for Poverty Alleviation: An Introduction to the Special Issue," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 14(1), pages 129-145, January.
    19. Chakravarty, Satya R. & Mukherjee, Diganta, 1998. "Optimal subsidy for the poor," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 313-319, December.
    20. Park, Albert & Wang, Sangui & Wu, Guobao, 2002. "Regional poverty targeting in China," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 123-153, October.
    21. François BOURGUIGNON & Gary S. FIELDS, 1990. "Poverty Measures and Anti-Poverty Policy," Discussion Papers (REL - Recherches Economiques de Louvain) 1990038, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    22. 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.
    23. Hamish Low & Luigi Pistaferri, 2015. "Disability Insurance and the Dynamics of the Incentive Insurance Trade-Off," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(10), pages 2986-3029, October.
    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. Christophe Muller, 2018. "Optimal Cash Transfers with Distribution Regressions: An Application to Egypt at the Dawn of the XXIst Century," AMSE Working Papers 1802, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    2. Christophe Muller, 2016. "Optimal transfers with distribution regressions: An application to Egypt at the dawn of the XXIst century," WIDER Working Paper Series 179, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Christophe Muller & Sami Bibi, 2006. "Focused Targeting against Poverty Evidence from Tunisia," IDEP Working Papers 0602, Institut d'economie publique (IDEP), Marseille, France, revised Apr 2006.
    4. Christophe MULLER & 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.
    5. Christophe Muller, 2006. "Optimising Anti-Poverty Transfers With Quantile Regressions," Working Papers. Serie AD 2006-07, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    6. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4335 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Christophe Muller, 2008. "Anti-Poverty Transfers and Spatial Prices in Tunisia," Discussion Papers 08/13, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.
    8. Christophe Muller, 2007. "Anti-Poverty Transfers without Riots in Tunisia," Working Papers DT/2007/08, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    9. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4334 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Bibi Sami, 2003. "On the Impact of Better Targeted Transfers on Poverty in Tunisia," Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 17-35, January.
    11. Christophe Muller & Sami Bibi, 2010. "Refining Targeting against Poverty Evidence from Tunisia," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 72(3), pages 381-410, June.
    12. Halbert White & Karim Chalak, 2013. "Identification and Identification Failure for Treatment Effects Using Structural Systems," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(3), pages 273-317, November.
    13. Sami Bibi, 2001. "Comparing Effects of General Subsidies and Targeted Transfers on Poverty: Robustness Analysis Using Data Set from Tunisia," Working Papers 0125, Economic Research Forum, revised 09 Jun 2001.
    14. Stefan Wachter & Sebastian Galiani, 2006. "Optimal income support targeting," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 13(6), pages 661-684, November.
    15. Stephan Klasen & Simon Lange, 2015. "Targeting Performance and Poverty Effects of Proxy Means-Tested Transfers: Trade-offs and Challenges," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 231, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    16. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    17. Louis Kaplow, 2007. "Optimal income transfers," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 14(3), pages 295-325, June.
    18. Jones A.M & Rice N, 2009. "Econometric Evaluation of Health Policies," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 09/09, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    19. Kanbur, Ravi, 2000. "Income distribution and development," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 791-841, Elsevier.
    20. Miguel Székely, 1997. "Opciones de políticas para la paliación de la pobreza," Research Department Publications 4063, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    21. Marianne P. Bitler & Jonah B. Gelbach & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2017. "Can Variation in Subgroups' Average Treatment Effects Explain Treatment Effect Heterogeneity? Evidence from a Social Experiment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(4), pages 683-697, July.
    22. Bibi, Sami & Duclos, Jean-Yves, 2007. "Equity and policy effectiveness with imperfect targeting," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 109-140, May.

    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:unu:wpaper:wp-2016-179. 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: Siméon Rapin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/widerfi.html .

    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.