Where They Live : District-Level Measures of Poverty, Average Consumption, and the Middle Class in Central Asia
Rapid economic growth over the past two decades lifted millions of people out of poverty in Central Asia. But the uneven spread of prosperity left many communities struggling to catch up. To support lagging regions within countries, each of the reg...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/770411562850918468/Where-They-Live-District-Level-Measures-of-Poverty-Average-Consumption-and-the-Middle-Class-in-Central-Asia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32060 |
| Summary: | Rapid economic growth over the past two
decades lifted millions of people out of poverty in Central
Asia. But the uneven spread of prosperity left many
communities struggling to catch up. To support lagging
regions within countries, each of the region's five
national governments has made convergence a pillar of their
development strategies. An imperfect patchwork of household
surveys allows policy makers to monitor progress and
identify some spatial disparities. But these share an
important weakness: none of the official surveys in the
region is representative when disaggregated to the level of
districts. Islands of poverty and prosperity are thus lost
in the averages -- leading to targeting inaccuracies that
can slow the pace of poverty reduction. This study partially
addresses the challenge. The accuracy of key welfare
indicators is sharpened well beyond what could be achieved
for any country alone by: i) unifying survey data from
across the region and ii) applying the techniques of
small-area estimation. The results provide detailed measures
of welfare that in turn can be disaggregated for each
district in Central Asia. Comprehensive maps of where the
poor and the middle class live are presented, for the entire
region and individually for each country. |
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