On assessing pro-poorness of government programmes: international comparisons

Abstract

This paper proposes a new “Pro-Poor Policy (PPP)” index, which measures the pro-poorness of government programmes, as well as basic service delivery in education, health and infrastructure. The index provides a means to assess the targeting efficiency of government programmes compared to perfect targeting. The paper also deals with the policy issue of how targeting efficiency of government programmes varies across various socioeconomic groups. To this effect, the paper develops two types of PPP indices by socioeconomic groups, which are within-group and total-group PPP indices. The within-group PPP index captures how well targeted a programme is within a group. On the other hand, if our objective is to maximize poverty reduction at the national level, the targeting efficiency of particular group should be judged on the basis of total-group PPP index. Using micro unit-record data on household surveys from Thailand, Russia, Vietnam, and 15 African countries, the paper evaluates a wide range of government programmes and basic services.