B Essama-Nssah
Biographic Data
| ID | 202658 |
|---|---|
| NAME | B Essama-Nssah |
| GIVEN NAMES | B |
| FAMILY NAME | Essama-Nssah |
| SIGNATURE | ESSAMA-NSSAH B |
| AFFILIATIONS | a World Bank , Washington , DC |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 5 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Counterfactual Decomposition of Pro-Poorness Using Influence Functions
Poverty reduction has emerged as a fundamental social objective of development, and has become a metric commonly used to assess the performance of public policy. This paper adapts the methodology of Firpo, Fortin and Lemieux (2009) [2009. “Unconditional Quantile Regressions.” Econometrica 77 (3): 953–973] to the measurement of the pro-poorness of income growth. The method allows the analyst to identify covariates that affect poverty reduction. Th…
Understanding Changes in Poverty
Understanding Changes in Poverty brings together different methods to decompose the contributions to poverty reduction. A simple approach quantifies the contribution of changes in demographics, employment, earnings, public transfers, and remittances to poverty reduction. A more complex approach quantifies the contributions to poverty reduction from changes in individual and household characteristics, including changes in the sectoral, occupationa…
Identification of Sources of Variation in Poverty Outcomes
The international community has declared poverty reduction one of the fundamental objectives of development, and therefore a metric for assessing the effectiveness of development interventions. This creates the need for a sound understanding of the fundamental factors that account for observed variations in poverty outcomes either over time or across space. Consistent with the view that such an understanding entails deeper micro empirical work on…
Too little too late
The authors use regression analysis to \n assess the potential welfare impact of rainfall shocks in \n rural Indonesia. In particular, they consider two shocks: \n (i) a delay in the onset of monsoon and (ii) a significant \n shortfall in the amount of rain in the 90 day post-onset \n period. Focusing on households with family farm businesses, \n the analysis finds that a delay in the monsoon onset does \n not have a significant impact on the wel…
A Counterfactual Analysis Of The Poverty Impact Of Economic Growth In Cameroon
The Government of Cameroon has declared poverty reduction through strong and sustainable economic growth the central objective of its socioeconomic policy. This paper uses available household survey data to assess the performance of the economy with respect to this objective over the period 1996-2007. The authors use counterfactual decompositions based on both the Shapley method and the generalized Oaxaca-Blinder framework to identify proximate f…
Accounting for heterogeneity in growth incidence in Cameroon
This paper presents counterfactual decompositions based on both the Shapley method and a generalization of the Oaxaca-Blinder approach to identify proximate factors that might explain differences in the distribution of economic welfare in Cameroon in 1996-2007. In particular, the analysis uses re-centered influence function regressions to link the growth incidence curve for 2001-2007 to household characteristics and account for heterogeneity of i…
A Poverty-Focused Evaluation Of Commodity Tax Options
The difficulties faced by many developing countries in raising revenue from direct taxes have forced them to rely heavily on indirect taxes to finance development interventions. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how to identify socially desirable options for commodity taxation in the context of a poverty reduction strategy. Within the logic of social evaluation the author assesses tax options on the basis of value judgments underlying me…
Measuring The Pro-Poorness Of Income Growth Within An Elasticity Framework
Poverty reduction has become a fundamental objective of development, and therefore a metric for assessing the effectiveness of various interventions. Economic growth can be a powerful instrument of income poverty reduction. This creates a need for meaningful ways of assessing the poverty impact of growth. This paper follows the elasticity approach to propose a measure of pro-poorness defined as a weighted average of the deviation of a growth patt…
Simulating The Poverty Impact Of Macroeconomic Shocks And Policies
Developing countries face a host of macroeconomic challenges in the design and implementation of development strategies and policies. The importance of the underlying poverty and distributional issues creates a need for relevant and reliable ways of tracking the social impact of shocks and policies. This paper describes, and demonstrates the use of, a stylized framework for simulating the poverty implications of the Dutch disease, a change in the…
The Poverty And Distributional Impact Of Macroeconomic Shocks And Policies
The importance of distributional issues in policymaking creates a need for empirical tools to assess the social impact of economic shocks and policies. This paper reviews some of the modeling approaches that are currently in use at the World Bank and other international financial institutions. The specification of these models is dictated by the issues at stake, the knowledge about the nature of the process involved, and the availability and reli…
A Unified Framework for Pro-Poor Growth Analysis
"Starting with a general impact indicator as an evaluation criterion, Essama-Nssah offers an integrative framework for a unified discussion of various concepts and measures of pro-poor growth emerging from the current literature. He shows that whether economic growth is considered pro-poor depends fundamentally on the choice of evaluative weights. In addition, the author's framework leads to a new indicator of the rate of pro-poor growth that can…
Assessing the Distributional Impact of Public Policy
Economic development necessarily changes the welfare of socioeconomic groups to various degrees, depending on differences in their social arrangements. The challenge for policymakers is to select the changes that will be most socially desirable. The author demonstrates the usefulness of distributional analysis for social evaluation and, more specifically, for welfare evaluation, using data from the 1994 Integrated Household Survey in Guinea. Beca…
A Poverty Analysis Macroeconomic Simulator (Pams) Linking Household Surveys with Macro-Models
The Poverty Analysis Macroeconomic \n Simulator (PAMS) is a model that links standard household \n surveys with macro frameworks. It allows users to assess the \n effect of macroeconomic policies-in particular, those \n associated with Poverty Reduction Strategies papers-on \n sectoral employment and income, the incidence of poverty, \n and income distribution. PAMS (in Excel) has three \n interconnected components: (1) A standard aggregate \n ma…
Too little too late
The authors use regression analysis to \n assess the potential welfare impact of rainfall shocks in \n rural Indonesia. In particular, they consider two shocks: \n (i) a delay in the onset of monsoon and (ii) a significant \n shortfall in the amount of rain in the 90 day post-onset \n period. Focusing on households with family farm businesses, \n the analysis finds that a delay in the monsoon onset does \n not have a significant impact on the wel…
Counterfactual Decomposition of Pro-Poorness Using Influence Functions
Poverty reduction has emerged as a fundamental social objective of development, and has become a metric commonly used to assess the performance of public policy. This paper adapts the methodology of Firpo, Fortin and Lemieux (2009) [2009. “Unconditional Quantile Regressions.” Econometrica 77 (3): 953–973] to the measurement of the pro-poorness of income growth. The method allows the analyst to identify covariates that affect poverty reduction. Th…
Assessing the Distributional Impact of Public Policy
Economic development necessarily changes the welfare of socioeconomic groups to various degrees, depending on differences in their social arrangements. The challenge for policymakers is to select the changes that will be most socially desirable. The author demonstrates the usefulness of distributional analysis for social evaluation and, more specifically, for welfare evaluation, using data from the 1994 Integrated Household Survey in Guinea. Beca…
A Poverty Analysis Macroeconomic Simulator (Pams) Linking Household Surveys with Macro-Models
The Poverty Analysis Macroeconomic \n Simulator (PAMS) is a model that links standard household \n surveys with macro frameworks. It allows users to assess the \n effect of macroeconomic policies-in particular, those \n associated with Poverty Reduction Strategies papers-on \n sectoral employment and income, the incidence of poverty, \n and income distribution. PAMS (in Excel) has three \n interconnected components: (1) A standard aggregate \n ma…
A Unified Framework for Pro-Poor Growth Analysis
"Starting with a general impact indicator as an evaluation criterion, Essama-Nssah offers an integrative framework for a unified discussion of various concepts and measures of pro-poor growth emerging from the current literature. He shows that whether economic growth is considered pro-poor depends fundamentally on the choice of evaluative weights. In addition, the author's framework leads to a new indicator of the rate of pro-poor growth that can…
Simulating The Poverty Impact Of Macroeconomic Shocks And Policies
Developing countries face a host of macroeconomic challenges in the design and implementation of development strategies and policies. The importance of the underlying poverty and distributional issues creates a need for relevant and reliable ways of tracking the social impact of shocks and policies. This paper describes, and demonstrates the use of, a stylized framework for simulating the poverty implications of the Dutch disease, a change in the…
The Poverty And Distributional Impact Of Macroeconomic Shocks And Policies
The importance of distributional issues in policymaking creates a need for empirical tools to assess the social impact of economic shocks and policies. This paper reviews some of the modeling approaches that are currently in use at the World Bank and other international financial institutions. The specification of these models is dictated by the issues at stake, the knowledge about the nature of the process involved, and the availability and reli…
Measuring The Pro-Poorness Of Income Growth Within An Elasticity Framework
Poverty reduction has become a fundamental objective of development, and therefore a metric for assessing the effectiveness of various interventions. Economic growth can be a powerful instrument of income poverty reduction. This creates a need for meaningful ways of assessing the poverty impact of growth. This paper follows the elasticity approach to propose a measure of pro-poorness defined as a weighted average of the deviation of a growth patt…
A Poverty-Focused Evaluation Of Commodity Tax Options
The difficulties faced by many developing countries in raising revenue from direct taxes have forced them to rely heavily on indirect taxes to finance development interventions. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how to identify socially desirable options for commodity taxation in the context of a poverty reduction strategy. Within the logic of social evaluation the author assesses tax options on the basis of value judgments underlying me…
A Counterfactual Analysis Of The Poverty Impact Of Economic Growth In Cameroon
The Government of Cameroon has declared poverty reduction through strong and sustainable economic growth the central objective of its socioeconomic policy. This paper uses available household survey data to assess the performance of the economy with respect to this objective over the period 1996-2007. The authors use counterfactual decompositions based on both the Shapley method and the generalized Oaxaca-Blinder framework to identify proximate f…
Accounting for heterogeneity in growth incidence in Cameroon
This paper presents counterfactual decompositions based on both the Shapley method and a generalization of the Oaxaca-Blinder approach to identify proximate factors that might explain differences in the distribution of economic welfare in Cameroon in 1996-2007. In particular, the analysis uses re-centered influence function regressions to link the growth incidence curve for 2001-2007 to household characteristics and account for heterogeneity of i…
Identification of Sources of Variation in Poverty Outcomes
The international community has declared poverty reduction one of the fundamental objectives of development, and therefore a metric for assessing the effectiveness of development interventions. This creates the need for a sound understanding of the fundamental factors that account for observed variations in poverty outcomes either over time or across space. Consistent with the view that such an understanding entails deeper micro empirical work on…
Too little too late
The authors use regression analysis to \n assess the potential welfare impact of rainfall shocks in \n rural Indonesia. In particular, they consider two shocks: \n (i) a delay in the onset of monsoon and (ii) a significant \n shortfall in the amount of rain in the 90 day post-onset \n period. Focusing on households with family farm businesses, \n the analysis finds that a delay in the monsoon onset does \n not have a significant impact on the wel…
Understanding Changes in Poverty
Understanding Changes in Poverty brings together different methods to decompose the contributions to poverty reduction. A simple approach quantifies the contribution of changes in demographics, employment, earnings, public transfers, and remittances to poverty reduction. A more complex approach quantifies the contributions to poverty reduction from changes in individual and household characteristics, including changes in the sectoral, occupationa…
Counterfactual Decomposition of Pro-Poorness Using Influence Functions
Poverty reduction has emerged as a fundamental social objective of development, and has become a metric commonly used to assess the performance of public policy. This paper adapts the methodology of Firpo, Fortin and Lemieux (2009) [2009. “Unconditional Quantile Regressions.” Econometrica 77 (3): 953–973] to the measurement of the pro-poorness of income growth. The method allows the analyst to identify covariates that affect poverty reduction. Th…
Economics (12 works) · Income, Poverty, and Inequality (12 works) · Economic growth (9 works) · Poverty (8 works) · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth (7 works) · Agricultural risk and resilience (6 works) · Econometrics (4 works) · Geography (4 works) · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare (4 works) · Public economics (4 works)