A model based approach for predicting annual poverty rates without expenditure data

The primus inter pares of the UN-approved Millennium Development Goals is to reduce poverty. The only internationally accepted method of estimating poverty requires a measurement of total consumption based on a time-consuming and resource-demanding measure of household expenditure in an integrated survey over 12 months. Rather than measuring poverty, say, only every fifth year, a model is presented to predict poverty based on a small set of household variables to be collected annually between two 12-monthly household surveys. Information obtained from these “light” surveys might then be used to predict poverty rates. The key question is whether the inaccuracy in these predictions is acceptable. It is recommended that these models be tested at a country level and if the test results are similar to those found here, that this approach be adopted.