High precision poverty maps

Abstract: Estimating economic indicators is crucial for achieving a targeted implementation of welfare policies. However, for such policies to be effective, policy makers must have access to a detailed picture of deprivation that goes beyond aggregate estimates at the country (national) level, extending to finer geographical levels and to other domains of interest, such as specific groups of individuals. In this context, we have estimated the regional distribution of poverty and inequality across several Euro­pean countries using the most recently available data from European censuses and the EU-SILC household surveys. The main goal of this exercise has been to generate poverty maps (via the so-called ‘Empirical Best Prediction’ (EBP) approach) with the highest geographical precision that the available data permitted, in as many countries as possible.