Using cross-survey imputation to estimate poverty for Venezuelan refugees in Colombia

Sarr, Ibrahima, Dang, Hai-Anh H., Gutierrez, Carlos Santiago Guzman, Beltramo, Theresa and Verme, Paolo (2025) Using cross-survey imputation to estimate poverty for Venezuelan refugees in Colombia. Social Indicators Research. ISSN 0303-8300

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Abstract

Household consumption or income surveys do not typically cover refugee populations. In the rare cases where refugees are included, inconsistencies between different data sources could interfere with comparable poverty estimates. We test the performance of a recently developed cross-survey imputation method to estimate poverty for a sample of refugees in Colombia, combining household income surveys collected by the Government of Colombia and administrative (ProGres) data collected by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2019 and 2022. We find that certain variable transformation methods can help resolve these inconsistencies. Estimation results with our preferred variable standardization method are robust to different imputation methods, including the normal linear regression method, the empirical distribution of the errors method, and the probit and logit methods. Several common machine learning techniques generally perform worse than our proposed imputation methods. We also find that we can reasonably impute poverty rates using an older household income survey and a more recent ProGres dataset for most of the poverty lines. These results provide relevant inputs into designing better surveys and administrative datasets on refugees in various country settings.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author(s)
Divisions:	LSE
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions
JEL classification:	C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C1 - Econometric and Statistical Methods: General > C15 - Statistical Simulation Methods; Monte Carlo Methods; Bootstrap Methods F - International Economics > F2 - International Factor Movements and International Business > F22 - International Migration I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I3 - Welfare and Poverty > I32 - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty O - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O15 - Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration O - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth > O2 - Development Planning and Policy > O20 - General
Date Deposited:	21 Jan 2025 10:45
Last Modified:	21 Jan 2025 10:45
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/126960

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