This blog is the third of a series of blogs showcasing the different features of the Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP).
Continuing with the video-blog series, this week’s video reviews PIP’s Poverty Calculator. Flexibility is this tool’s main trait. The Poverty Calculator allows for country-specific analyses and comparisons across countries, regions, and the world. Economies are easily added and dropped from the analysis.
The Poverty Calculator reports 9 different key development indicators. As in other parts of PIP, the poverty line value (right-hand side) and desired time range (bottom slider) can be adjusted. Results are plotted in four ways: a line graph, bar chart, map, and table. The data visualizations can be quickly shared on social media, and the underlying data can be easily downloaded in a CSV file.
The discontinuity in the line graph indicates breaks in comparability over time (for more information on the comparability of poverty estimates visit the “Comparability Over Time” dataset available in The Development Data Hub). Under the advanced options, it is possible to show the interpolated trend. For countries that do not have annual surveys, these interpolated numbers are used in the calculation of regional and global aggregates. The details of the methodology applied in this line-up estimate can be found in PIP’s Methodology Handbook. It is important to note that these interpolated values rely on additional methodological assumptions (such as that the growth in the household welfare can be approximated by growth in national accounts, and that the entire distribution grows at the same rate). Therefore, users are cautioned against using reference-year estimates for monitoring country trends over time.
We hope this third video tutorial was useful for your PIP experience. We will continue to explore the different functionalities of PIP in the following weeks. Stay tuned for a review of Statistics Online (SOL) next!
We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the UK government through the Data and Evidence for Tackling Extreme Poverty (DEEP) Research Programme. This work has also been supported by the World Bank’s Partnership Fund for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG Fund) and a World Bank trust fund with the Republic of Korea, acting through the Korea Development Institute School of Public Policy and Management (KDIS), for the KDI School Partnership for Knowledge Creation and Sharing.
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