The authors examine the performance of small area welfare estimation. The method combines census and survey data to produce spatially disaggregated poverty and inequality estimates. To test the method, they compare predicted welfare indicators for a set of target populations with their true...

So little is known about the rural nonfarm sector that those making policy to assist rural small-scale enterprises have done so largely"unencumbered by evidence". The Lanjouw survey of nonfarm data and policy experience attempts to correct this. Until recently, the commonly held view was that...

The authors construct and derive the properties of estimators of welfare that take advantage of the detailed information about living standards available in small household surveys and the comprehensive coverage of a census or large sample. By combining the strengths of each, the estimators can...

The authors discuss the use of imputed data in regression analysis, in particular the use of highly disaggregated welfare indicators (from so-called"poverty maps"). They show that such indicators can be used both as explanatory variables on the right-hand side and as the phenomenon to explain on...