Picking the Poor: Indicators for Geographic Targeting in Peru

Norbert Schady

Review of Income and Wealth, 2002, vol. 48, issue 3, 417-433

Abstract: Geographic targeting is perhaps the most popular mechanism used to direct social programs to the poor in Latin America. This paper empirically compares geographic targeting indicators available in Peru. To this effect, I combine household–level information from the 1997 Peru Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS) and district–level information from the 1993 Peru Population and Housing Census. I then conduct a series of simulations which estimate leakage rates, concentration curves, the impact of transfers on poverty as measured by the headcount index, poverty gap and P2 measures of the FGT family, and non–parametric (kernel) densities when transfers are based on alternative indicators. I conclude that there is substantial potential for geographic targeting in Peru. However, the differences in outcomes across geographic targeting indicators are small, and are not statistically significant. These results are in keeping with earlier work which suggests that (among reasonable alternatives) the choice of geographic targeting indicator does not have an important bearing on poverty outcomes, and are at odds with more recent research which stresses the advantage of poverty maps which “impute” consumption or income.

Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-4991.00061

Related works:
Working Paper: Picking the poor: indicators for geographic targeting in Peru (2000)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:revinw:v:48:y:2002:i:3:p:417-433

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0034-6586

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Income and Wealth is currently edited by Conchita D'Ambrosio and Robert J. Hill

More articles in Review of Income and Wealth from International Association for Research in Income and Wealth Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().