1 Draft 10/06/09 Using Repeated Cross-Sections to Explore Movements in and out of Poverty

In this paper we consider a method whereby repeated cross-sections of household survey data can be analyzed in such a way as to allow inferences to be made about movements in and out of poverty. Such inferences usually depend on the availability of panel data. Our approach builds on the methodology used to construct poverty maps. We suggest that this method lends itself also to the development of “pseudo-panels ” which can be used to study questions about poverty duration and mobility that are of interest to policy makers but that are rarely pursued empirically due to data constraints. We illustrate that the method at best offers insights into bounds of mobility, but argue that these bounds can, under ideal circumstances, be narrow enough to yield useful insights. We test how well the method works by sampling repeated cross sections from genuine panel data sets for Vietnam and Indonesia and comparing our method to the panel estimates. Our results are sufficiently encouraging to offer the prospect of some limited, basic, insights into mobility and poverty duration in settings where historically it was judged that the data necessary for such analysis were unavailable