IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/23576.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Spatial Comparisons of Poverty and Inequality in Living Standards in Malawi

Author

Listed:
  • Mussa, Richard

Abstract

The paper looks at poverty and inequality across areas in Malawi. The focus is on both monetary (consumption) and non monetary (health and education) dimensions of well being. Stochastic poverty dominance tests show that rural areas are poorer in the three dimensions regardless of poverty line chosen. Stochastic inequality dominance tests find that the north and south dominate the centre in health inequality, and there is no dominance between the north and south. With respect to education inequality, dominance is declared for the south-centre pair only. A sub group decomposition analysis finds that the south contributes the most to consumption and education poverty while the centre is the largest contributor to health poverty. We establish that within area inequalities (vertical inequalities) rather than between area inequalities (horizontal inequalities) are the major driver of consumption, health, and education inequality in Malawi.

Suggested Citation

  • Mussa, Richard, 2010. "Spatial Comparisons of Poverty and Inequality in Living Standards in Malawi," MPRA Paper 23576, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:23576
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/23576/1/MPRA_paper_23576.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Foster, James & Greer, Joel & Thorbecke, Erik, 1984. "A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 761-766, May.
    2. David E. Sahn & David C. Stifel, 2003. "Urban--Rural Inequality in Living Standards in Africa," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 12(4), pages 564-597, December.
    3. Martin Ravallion, 2011. "On multidimensional indices of poverty," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(2), pages 235-248, June.
    4. Russell Davidson & Jean-Yves Duclos, 2000. "Statistical Inference for Stochastic Dominance and for the Measurement of Poverty and Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(6), pages 1435-1464, November.
    5. Jean-Yves Duclos & Abdelkrim Araar, 2006. "Poverty and Equity," Economic Studies in Inequality, Social Exclusion, and Well-Being, Springer, number 978-0-387-33318-2, January.
    6. Jean-Yves Duclos & David Sahn & Stephen D. Younger, 2006. "Robust Multidimensional Spatial Poverty Comparisons in Ghana, Madagascar, and Uganda," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 20(1), pages 91-113.
    7. Wagstaff, Adam & Paci, Pierella & van Doorslaer, Eddy, 1991. "On the measurement of inequalities in health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 545-557, January.
    8. Mukherjee, Sanjukta & Benson, Todd, 2003. "The Determinants of Poverty in Malawi, 1998," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 339-358, February.
    9. Jean-Yves Duclos & David E. Sahn & Stephen D. Younger, 2006. "Robust Multidimensional Poverty Comparisons," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(514), pages 943-968, October.
    10. Basu, Kaushik & Foster, James E, 1998. "On Measuring Literacy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(451), pages 1733-1749, November.
    11. Sahn, David E. & Stifel, David C., 2000. "Poverty Comparisons Over Time and Across Countries in Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(12), pages 2123-2155, December.
    12. David E. Sahn & Stephen D. Younger, 2006. "Changes in Inequality and Poverty in Latin America: Looking Beyond Income to Health and Education," Journal of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 215-233, November.
    13. Deon Filmer & Lant Pritchett, 2001. "Estimating Wealth Effects Without Expenditure Data—Or Tears: An Application To Educational Enrollments In States Of India," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(1), pages 115-132, February.
    14. Filmer, Deon & Pritchett, Lant, 1998. "Estimating wealth effects without expenditure data - or tears : with an application to educational enrollments in states of India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1994, The World Bank.
    15. David E. Sahn & Stephen D. Younger, 2006. "Changes in Inequality and Poverty in Latin America: Looking Beyond Income to Health and Education," Journal of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 215-233, November.
    16. David E. Sahn & David C. Stifel, 2002. "Robust Comparisons of Malnutrition in Developing Countries," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 84(3), pages 716-735.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mussa, Richard, 2010. "Poverty and Inequality in Standards of Living in Malawi: Does Religious Affiliation Matter?," MPRA Paper 24438, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Sara Mota Cardoso & Aurora A. C. Teixeira, 2020. "The Focus on Poverty in the Most Influential Journals in Economics: A Bibliometric Analysis of the “Blue Ribbon” Journals," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(1), pages 10-42, March.
    3. Anderson Sawira Gondwe, 2015. "Asset index, child nutritional status and pro-poor growth analysis in Malawi," Working Papers 20/2015, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    4. Mussa, Richard, 2011. "The poverty-inequality relationship in Malawi: A multidimensional perspective," MPRA Paper 31413, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Mussa, Richard, 2010. "Poverty and Inequality in Standards of Living in Malawi: Does Religious Affiliation Matter?," MPRA Paper 24438, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Mussa, Richard, 2011. "The poverty-inequality relationship in Malawi: A multidimensional perspective," MPRA Paper 31413, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Jane Kabubo-Mariara & Anthony Wambugu & Susan Musau, 2011. "Multidimensional Poverty in Kenya: Analysis of Maternal and Child Wellbeing," Working Papers PMMA 2011-12, PEP-PMMA.
    4. Alkire, Sabina & Santos, Maria Emma, 2014. "Measuring Acute Poverty in the Developing World: Robustness and Scope of the Multidimensional Poverty Index," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 251-274.
    5. Permanyer, Iñaki, 2014. "Assessing individuals' deprivation in a multidimensional framework," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 1-16.
    6. M. Azhar Hussain & Nikolaj Siersbæk & Lars Peter Østerdal, 2020. "Multidimensional welfare comparisons of EU member states before, during, and after the financial crisis: a dominance approach," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 55(4), pages 645-686, December.
    7. Duclos, Jean-Yves & Leblanc, Josée & Sahn, David E., 2011. "Comparing population distributions from bin-aggregated sample data: An application to historical height data from France," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 419-437.
    8. Frank-Borge Wietzke, 2015. "Who Is Poorest? An Asset-based Analysis of Multidimensional Wellbeing," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 33(1), pages 33-59, January.
    9. James Foster & Joel Greer & Erik Thorbecke, 2010. "The Foster–Greer–Thorbecke (FGT) poverty measures: 25 years later," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 8(4), pages 491-524, December.
    10. David E. Sahn & Stephen D. Younger, 2009. "Measuring intra‐household health inequality: explorations using the body mass index," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(S1), pages 13-36, April.
    11. James E. Foster & Joel Greer & Erik Thorbecke, 2010. "The Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) Poverty Measures: Twenty-Five Years Later," Working Papers 2010-14, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    12. Stifel, David, 2010. "The rural non-farm economy, livelihood strategies and household welfare," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 4(1), pages 1-28, March.
    13. Sabina Alkire & Yingfeng Fang, 2019. "Dynamics of Multidimensional Poverty and Uni-dimensional Income Poverty: An Evidence of Stability Analysis from China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 142(1), pages 25-64, February.
    14. Koen Decancq & Marc Fleurbaey & François Maniquet, 2019. "Multidimensional poverty measurement with individual preferences," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 17(1), pages 29-49, March.
    15. David E. Sahn & Stephen D. Younger, 2017. "The Incidence of Child Health Improvements," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 304-320, May.
    16. Bénédicte Apouey & David Madden, 2023. "Health poverty," Chapters, in: Jacques Silber (ed.), Research Handbook on Measuring Poverty and Deprivation, chapter 19, pages 202-211, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Pinar, Mehmet & Stengos, Thanasis & Topaloglou, Nikolas, 2020. "On the construction of a feasible range of multidimensional poverty under benchmark weight uncertainty," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 281(2), pages 415-427.
    18. Patrick Ward, 2014. "Measuring the Level and Inequality of Wealth: An Application to China," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(4), pages 613-635, December.
    19. Duclos, Jean-Yves & Sahn, David E. & Younger, Stephen D., 2011. "Partial multidimensional inequality orderings," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(3), pages 225-238.
    20. Mehmet Pinar & Thanasis Stengos & Nikolas Topaloglou, 2022. "Stochastic dominance spanning and augmenting the human development index with institutional quality," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 315(1), pages 341-369, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Poverty; inequality; stochastic dominance; decomposition; Malawi.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D30 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - General

    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:pra:mprapa:23576. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.