Abstract
This paper develops new procedures for testing for robust multidimensional poverty comparisons and applies them to the welfare of children in six countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU). Two dimensions are considered, nutritional status and assets. The estimation of the asset index is based on two data reduction methods. The first method uses Multiple Correspondence Analysis; the second is based on factor analysis. Using Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), pivotal bootstrap tests lead to statistically significant dominance relationships between 12 of the 15 possible pairs of the six WAEMU countries. Multidimensional poverty is also inferred to be more prevalent in rural than in urban areas. These results tend to support those derived from more restrictive unidimensional dominance tests.
Keywords
- Stochastic dominance
- Factor analysis
- Bayesian analysis
- Multidimensional poverty
- Empirical likelihood function
- Bootstrap tests
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Batana, Y.M., Duclos, JY. (2010). Multidimensional Poverty AmongWest African Children: Testing for Robust Poverty Comparisons. In: Cockburn, J., Kabubo-Mariara, J. (eds) Child Welfare in Developing Countries. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6275-1_4
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