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Monitoring Poverty in a Data Deprived Environment: The Case of Lebanon

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Makdissi

    (University of Ottowa)

  • Walid Marrouch

    (Lebanese American University)

  • Myra Yazbeck

    (University of Ottawa)

Abstract

This paper is motivated by the dearth of statistical capacity in the Middle East North Africa region and the unprecedented economic collapse in Lebanon. It proposes and illustrates a data augmentation approach to conduct poverty analysis in the absence of traditional sources of information on income distribution. Our approach shows that it is possible to exploit alternative data sources to conduct the much-needed poverty analysis. Building on available data augmentation techniques, we first recover the entire income distribution from the available interval data. Then we account for nonresponse and estimate the bounds of the set of admissible cumulative distributions of income. Finally, we analyze poverty dynamics using first-order dominance tests on the bounds of admissible cumulative distributions set. To illustrate the importance of the proposed approach, we apply this methodology to Lebanese data, provide a picture of poverty dynamics, and provide insights into the politico-economic dynamics preceding the economic collapse.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Makdissi & Walid Marrouch & Myra Yazbeck, 2022. "Monitoring Poverty in a Data Deprived Environment: The Case of Lebanon," Working Papers 2022-014, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
  • Handle: RePEc:hka:wpaper:2022-014
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Nasri Harb & Tony Rouhana, 2020. "Earnings and gender wage gap in Lebanon: the role of the human and social capital," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(44), pages 4834-4849, September.
    2. Oliver Linton & Esfandiar Maasoumi & Yoon-Jae Whang, 2005. "Consistent Testing for Stochastic Dominance under General Sampling Schemes," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 735-765.
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    4. Atkinson, A B, 1987. "On the Measurement of Poverty," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(4), pages 749-764, July.
    5. Garry F. Barrett & Stephen G. Donald, 2003. "Consistent Tests for Stochastic Dominance," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 71-104, January.
    6. Walter, Paul & Weimer, Katja, 2018. "Estimating poverty and inequality indicators using interval censored income data from the German microcensus," Discussion Papers 2018/10, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
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    9. Serajuddin,Umar & Uematsu,Hiroki & Wieser,Christina & Yoshida,Nobuo & Dabalen,Andrew L., 2015. "Data deprivation : another deprivation to end," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7252, The World Bank.
    10. El-Haddad, Amirah, 2020. "Redefining the social contract in the wake of the Arab Spring: The experiences of Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    11. Fakih, Ali & Makdissi, Paul & Marrouch, Walid & Tabri, Rami V. & Yazbeck, Myra, 2022. "A stochastic dominance test under survey nonresponse with an application to comparing trust levels in Lebanese public institutions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 228(2), pages 342-358.
    12. Jean‐Yves Duclos & Paul Makdissi, 2004. "Restricted and Unrestricted Dominance for Welfare, Inequality, and Poverty Orderings," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 6(1), pages 145-164, February.
    13. Atamanov,Aziz & Tandon,Sharad Alan & Lopez-Acevedo,Gladys C. & Vergara Bahena,Mexico Alberto, 2020. "Measuring Monetary Poverty in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region : Data Gaps and Different Options to Address Them," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9259, The World Bank.
    14. Paul Makdissi & Myra Yazbeck, 2017. "Robust rankings of socioeconomic health inequality using a categorical variable," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(9), pages 1132-1145, September.
    15. Nasri Harb, 2022. "Earnings function in Lebanon: does religion matter?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(7), pages 821-840, February.
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    18. Allison, R. Andrew & Foster, James E., 2004. "Measuring health inequality using qualitative data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 505-524, May.
    19. Marcus Groß & Ulrich Rendtel & Timo Schmid & Sebastian Schmon & Nikos Tzavidis, 2017. "Estimating the density of ethnic minorities and aged people in Berlin: multivariate kernel density estimation applied to sensitive georeferenced administrative data protected via measurement error," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 180(1), pages 161-183, January.
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    Cited by:

    1. Oussama Abi Younes & Leila Dagher & Ibrahim Jamali & Paul Makdissi, 2023. "Quantifying turbulence: Introducing a multi-crises impact index for Lebanon," Working Papers 2305E, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.
    2. Hani Anouti & Antea Enna, 2023. "Social Instability in Fragile State Context: Exploring the Dynamics Between Syrian Refugees and the Lebanese Host Community in Lebanon," Contemporary Review of the Middle East, , vol. 10(4), pages 364-385, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    poverty dynamics; stochastic dominance; data deprivation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

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