Best Poverty Indicators for 12 Poverty Assessment Tool Countries

This note identifies the best indicators for carrying out poverty assessment studies. A particular indicator is chosen if it is selected among the best regressors by the top model in a particular country. Further, the note states that:

• The common indicators for the twelve countries can be grouped into four broad categories - education, housing, consumer durables and assets;
• Specific indicators within the above mentioned categories may not be necessarily applicable or may lack predictive power in another country;
• The predictive power of an indicator may vary between low poverty and medium/high poverty countries;
• Control variables (such as age of the household head and its square, household size and its square, geographical region, and rural or urban designation) are not present in the data table presented;
• All variables involving monetary values (e.g. expenditures) are entered in natural log terms in the regression analysis.

Finally, the consolidated indicators table for twelve countries mark the presence (or absence) of each of the seventy indicators amongst two groups of countries - countries with a poverty incidence greater than 20% and those that have it lower than 20%.