Related papers: Household poverty classification in data-scarce en…
We provide systematic evidence on the potential for estimating household well-being from mobile phone data. Using data from four countries - Afghanistan, Cote d'Ivoire, Malawi, and Togo - we conduct parallel, standardized machine learning…
The rigorous evaluation of anti-poverty programs is key to the fight against global poverty. Traditional evaluation approaches rely heavily on repeated in-person field surveys to measure changes in economic well-being and thus program…
Data collection in economically constrained countries often necessitates using approximate and biased measurements due to the low-cost of the sensors used. This leads to potentially invalid predictions and poor policies or decision making.…
Identifying the structural drivers of poverty in regional datasets is frequently hindered by small sample sizes and high multidimensional collinearity, which can result in unstable and misleading policy advice. This paper evaluates the…
Poverty is a multifaceted phenomenon linked to the lack of capabilities of households to earn a sustainable livelihood, increasingly being assessed using multidimensional indicators. Its spatial pattern depends on social, economic,…
The lack of reliable data in developing countries is a major obstacle to sustainable development, food security, and disaster relief. Poverty data, for example, is typically scarce, sparse in coverage, and labor-intensive to obtain. Remote…
Identifying and addressing poverty is challenging in administrative units with limited information on income distribution and well-being. To overcome this obstacle, small area estimation methods have been developed to provide reliable and…
In low and middle income countries, household surveys are a valuable source of information for a range of health and demographic indicators. Increasingly, subnational estimates are required for targeting interventions and evaluating…
Many countries measure poverty based only on income or consumption. However, there is a growing awareness of measuring poverty through multiple dimensions that captures a more reasonable status of poverty. Estimating poverty measure(s) for…
Accurate local-level poverty measurement is an essential task for governments and humanitarian organizations to track the progress towards improving livelihoods and distribute scarce resources. Recent computer vision advances in using…
Obtaining detailed and reliable data about local economic livelihoods in developing countries is expensive, and data are consequently scarce. Previous work has shown that it is possible to measure local-level economic livelihoods using…
The combination of high-resolution satellite imagery and machine learning have proven useful in many sustainability-related tasks, including poverty prediction, infrastructure measurement, and forest monitoring. However, the accuracy…
Recent advances in deep learning have enabled the inference of urban socioeconomic characteristics from satellite imagery. However, models relying solely on urbanization traits often show weak correlations with poverty indicators, as…
Major decisions from governments and other large organizations rely on measurements of the populace's well-being, but making such measurements at a broad scale is expensive and thus infrequent in much of the developing world. We propose an…
In the analysis of poverty and social exclusion, indicators of living conditions are some interesting non-monetary complements to the usual measurements in terms of current or annual income. Living conditions depend in fact on longer term…
Many studies have predicted SocioEconomic Position (SEP) for aggregated spatial units such as villages using satellite data, but SEP prediction at the household level and other sources of imagery have not been yet explored. We assembled a…
This paper investigates how to best compare algorithms for predicting chronic homelessness for the purpose of identifying good candidates for housing programs. Predictive methods can rapidly refer potentially chronic shelter users to…
This project began by constructing an index of economic insecurity using multiple socioeconomic indicators. Although poverty alone predicted SNAP participation more accurately than the composite index, its explanatory power was weaker than…
In developing countries, building codes often are outdated or not enforced. As a result, a large portion of the housing stock is substandard and vulnerable to natural hazards and climate related events. Assessing housing quality is key to…
Machine learning models trained on Earth observation data, such as satellite imagery, have demonstrated significant promise in predicting household-level wealth indices, enabling the creation of high-resolution wealth maps that can be…