IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpaper/halshs-01887649.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Proxy Means Testing vulnerability to measurement errors?

Author

Listed:
  • Jules Gazeaud

    (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - UCA [2017-2020] - Université Clermont Auvergne [2017-2020] - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

Proxy Means Testing (PMT) is a popular method to target the poor in developing countries. PMT usually relies on survey-based consumption data and assumes they are measured with random errors – an assumption that has been challenged by recent literature. This paper brings causal evidence on the impact of non-random errors on PMT performances. Using a survey experiment conducted in Tanzania in which eight alternative consumption questionnaires were randomly distributed across households, I compare the performances of PMT relying on error-prone consumption data with those of a PMT using gold standard consumption data. Results show that non-random errors reduce the predictive performances of PMT by a magnitude ranging from 5 to 27 percent, which in turn induce a 10 to 34 percent increase in the incidence of targeting errors (using the typical PPP $1.25 poverty line). Impacts on the relative distribution of households are nonetheless small and non-significant.

Suggested Citation

  • Jules Gazeaud, 2018. "Proxy Means Testing vulnerability to measurement errors?," Working Papers halshs-01887649, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01887649
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01887649
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01887649/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ameye, Hannah & De Weerdt, Joachim & Gibson, John, 2021. "Measuring macro- and micronutrient consumption in multi-purpose surveys: Evidence from a survey experiment in Tanzania," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    2. repec:wbk:wbrwps:10241 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Rolando Gonzales Martinez & Mariza Cooray, 2025. "Enhancing Poverty Targeting with Spatial Machine Learning: An application to Indonesia," Papers 2503.04300, arXiv.org.
    4. Joachim De Weerdt & John Gibson & Kathleen Beegle, 2020. "What Can We Learn from Experimenting with Survey Methods?," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 431-447, October.
    5. Thomas Pave Sohnesen & Peter Fisker & David Malmgren‐Hansen, 2022. "Using Satellite Data to Guide Urban Poverty Reduction," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 68(S2), pages 282-294, December.
    6. Ligon, Ethan & Trachtman, Carly, 2024. "Assessing Targeting Peformance: The Case of Ghana’s LEAP Program," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt2zk0m608, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social protection; Targeting; Proxy Means Testing (PMT); Measurement errors;
    All these keywords.

    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:hal:wpaper:halshs-01887649. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.