IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ctw/wpaper/11142.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Estimating a poverty line: An application to free basic municipal services in South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Haroon Bhorat
  • Morne Oosthuizen
  • Carlene Van Der Westhuizen

    (Development Policy Research Unit
    Director and Professor)

Abstract

One of the key interventions aimed at improving the welfare of South African households has been local government’s provision of a package of free basic services (FBS) to poor households. It is, however, not completely clear how different municipalities identify households which are eligible for FBS. Evidence suggests that many municipalities currently provide services to all households with a monthly income of less than R1500 per month. This “FBS poverty line” is, however, low in comparison with a number of unofficial poverty lines utilised by policymakers and researchers in South Africa. This paper considers the impact of increasing the value of the FBS line, both in terms of the additional share and number of households eligible for support as well as the additional financial cost. We find that urban municipalities will face the steepest increases in their FBS budgets with any potential increase in the FBS poverty line.

Suggested Citation

  • Haroon Bhorat & Morne Oosthuizen & Carlene Van Der Westhuizen, 2011. "Estimating a poverty line: An application to free basic municipal services in South Africa," Working Papers 11142, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    • Handle: RePEc:ctw:wpaper:11142
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7289
    File Function: First version, 2011
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kalie Pauw & Liberty Mncube, 2007. "Expanding the Social Security Net in South Africa: Opportunities, Challenges and Constraints," Working Papers 07127, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    2. Chaudhuri, Shubham & Ravallion, Martin, 1994. "How well do static indicators identify the chronically poor?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 367-394, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hentschel, Jesko & Lanjouw, Jean Olson & Lanjouw, Peter & Poggi, Javier, 1998. "Combining census and survey data to study spatial dimensions of poverty," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1928, The World Bank.
    2. Norbert R. Schady, 2002. "Picking the Poor: Indicators for Geographic Targeting in Peru," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 48(3), pages 417-433, September.
    3. Philippe Kerm, 2002. "How much low income turnover is there in Belgium?," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 341-363, December.
    4. Mr. Gary G. Moser & Mr. Toshihiro Ichida, 2001. "Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa," IMF Working Papers 2001/112, International Monetary Fund.
    5. James A. Levinsohn & Steven T. Berry & Jed Friedman, 2003. "Impacts of the Indonesian Economic Crisis.Price Changes and the Poor," NBER Chapters, in: Managing Currency Crises in Emerging Markets, pages 393-428, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Ramsès H. Abul Naga & Enrico Bolzani, 2006. "Poverty and Permanent Income: A Methodology for Cross-Section Data," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 81, pages 195-223.
    7. Riccardo Massari, 2005. "A Measure of Welfare Based on Permanent Income Hypothesis: An Application on Italian Households Budgets," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 64(1), pages 55-92, September.
    8. Jalan, Jyotsna & Ravallion, Martin, 2001. "Household income dynamics in rural China," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2706, The World Bank.
    9. Jalan, Jyotsna & Ravallion, Martin, 1996. "Transient poverty in rural China," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1616, The World Bank.
    10. Stefan Wachter & Sebastian Galiani, 2006. "Optimal income support targeting," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 13(6), pages 661-684, November.
    11. Rafał Nagaj, 2022. "Macroeconomic Policy versus Fuel Poverty in Poland—Support or Barrier," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-22, June.
    12. Miguel Szekely & Nora Lustig & Martin Cumpa & Jose Antonio Mejia, 2004. "Do we know how much poverty there is?," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(4), pages 523-558.
    13. Giorgio d’Agostino & Margherita Scarlato & Silvia Napolitano, 2018. "Do Cash Transfers Promote Food Security? The Case of the South African Child Support Grant," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 27(4), pages 430-456.
    14. Wiebelt, Manfred & Pauw, Karl & Matovu, John Mary & Twimukye, Evarist & Benson, Todd, 2011. "Managing future oil revenue in Uganda for agricultural development and poverty reduction: A CGE analysis of challenges and options," IFPRI discussion papers 1122, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    15. P. Jenkins, Stephen & Jäntti, Markus, 2013. "Income mobility," ISER Working Paper Series 2013-23, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    16. Meenakshi, J. V. & Ray, Ranjan, 2002. "Impact of household size and family composition on poverty in rural India," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 539-559, October.
    17. Datt, Gaurav & Gunewardena, Dileni, 1997. "Some aspects of poverty in Sri Lanka : 1985-90," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1738, The World Bank.
    18. Longford, N.T. & Pittau, M.G., 2006. "Stability of household income in European countries in the 1990s," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 1364-1383, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    free basic services; poverty line; municipal services; South Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A1 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ctw:wpaper:11142. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Waseema Petersen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dpuctza.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.