Measuring Monetary Poverty in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region: Data Gaps and Different Options to Address Them

Aziz Atamanov, Sharad Tandon, Gladys Lopez-Acevedo () and Mexico Alberto Vergara Bahena ()
Additional contact information
Gladys Lopez-Acevedo: World Bank
Mexico Alberto Vergara Bahena: World Bank
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Gladys Lopez-Acevedo

No 13363, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper identifies gaps in availability, access, and quality of household budget surveys in the Middle East and North Africa region used to measure monetary poverty and evaluates ways to fill these information gaps. Despite improving public access to household budget surveys, the availability and timeliness of welfare data in the Middle East and North Africa region is poor compared to the rest of the world. Closing the data gap requires collection of more HBS data in more countries and improving access to data where it exists. However, when collection of consumption data is not possible, a variety of other second-best strategies can be employed. Using imputation methods can help to measure monetary poverty. Constructing non-monetary poverty and asset indexes from less robust surveys, using non-traditional surveys such as phone surveys, and "big data"—administrative records, social networks and communications data, and geospatial data—can help substitute for, or complement data from existing traditional survey data.

Keywords: Middle East and North Africa; poverty; household budget surveys (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C81 I32 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2020-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ara and nep-dev
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Working Paper: Measuring Monetary Poverty in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region: Data Gaps and Different Options to Address Them (2020)
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