Spatial disaggregation of poverty and disability: application to Tanzania

Estimating poverty measures for disabled people in developing countries is often difficult, partly because relevant data are not readily available. We extend the small-area estimation developed by Elbers, Lanjouw and Lanjouw (2002, 2003) to estimate poverty by the disability status of the household head, when the disability status is unavailable in the survey. We propose two alternative approaches to this extension: Aggregation and Instrumental Variables Approaches. We apply these approaches to data from Tanzania and show that both approaches work. Our estimation results show that disability is indeed positively associated with poverty in every region of mainland Tanzania.