Tips for Using the Small Area Estimates of Poverty Catalog

The first worksheet in the catalog file is the overview. It contains a brief description of the catalog and each of the
worksheets. Click the tabs at the bottom of the page to move between the various worksheets.

The second worksheet in the catalog file is the glossary. The glossary is a reference guide for the variables included in
the catalog. The blue cells provide definitions of the Common Category (column C), under which the variables are
grouped, while the white cells provide a standardized set of definitions of the Common_Variable_Name (columns D
G). The black rows with white text (see Welfare Measures and Poverty Measures below) serve as headers and do not
correspond to the individual measuresthey simply group the glossary to make finding definitions easier. The grey rows
refer to sub-sets of the headers.

Variable Catalog Worksheet

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Before using the actual variable catalog on the third worksheet, it may be helpful to begin by looking for the red
triangles in the upper right corner of the cells. These triangles symbolize notes and are used to explain what type of
information each column holds. These notes will pop up when you mouse over the triangles with your cursor. They will
look like:

Because the catalog contains a substantial amount of information, it may also be useful to filter the data with the
dropdown buttons. Filtering the data generates subsets of informationso that only the information you are interested in
will appear. For instance, if you want to look at only those countries for which the FGT_0 variable is available, click the
dropdown button in column Dand highlight FGT_0 as follows:

You will then see only the FGT_0 variable information for all countries where it is available. It will look something like
this:

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Below are brief descriptions of other columns. As mentioned earlier, definitions for these columns may also be found by
mousing over the red triangle in the upper right-hand corner.

Columns A and B provide identifier information. Column A is the country name corresponding to each record. Column
B is the three character code unique to each country, published by the International Organization for Standardization.
.

Columns C and D consist of common variable categories and variable names created by CIESIN. Common categories
were assigned to groups of variables to help manage the catalog. For instance, if you sort Common_Category by
Generalized Entropy inequality measure, you will be able to view just the six generalized entropy measures for all
countries where they are available. Common variable names were applied (column D) to facilitate comparisons across
poverty studies. Original reports or data sheets often assign different names to like variables (see columns L and M).
Common variable names differ slightly from the actual data variable names in that the prefixes of t, u, or r were
added to the data to denote total, urban, or rural.

Columns EG consist of the data variables, broken down by rural and urban subdivisions. When applicable, columns H
K indicate their respective standard error variable names.

Columns L and M denote the original variable names and definitions that were provided in the primary reports or data files.

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Column N provides assorted notes including Web addresses of reports, the type of sub-national levels at which the data
are available, source information, etc.

Column O illustrates the spatial, administrative levels at which each data variable is collected. In the case of Kenya,
below, the variables for the total, urban, and rural estimated number of poor individuals (tpoorper, rpoorper, upoorper) are
produced at administrative level 0 (national level). These same variables, plus the rural and urban standard errors, are also
accessible at administrative levels 1, 2, 3, and 4. See the country summary sheet for more information on administrative
levels.

Column P denotes variables where CIESIN performed calculations. If we look at the same case of estimated number of
poor individuals, you can see that at administrative levels 1 and 3, the total estimated number of poor individuals is
calculated using formula 31.

For the equations that correspond to the formulas, see the fourth worksheet, entitled calculation appendix. The
formulas will appear as follows:

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The fifth worksheet is the country summary. Like the catalog, it is arranged by country and ISO3 code (see columns A
and B). This sheet consists mainly of metadata for the catalog.

The first portion of this worksheet, columns CG, describes the data used to generate the poverty estimates. Whenever
possible, the census year, percent of census used in mapping, survey year, survey type, and other data sources were all
taken from original reports. If these were not listed in the reports, efforts were made to contact the authors for more
information.

The second part of this worksheet, columns HZ, describes the tabular data. This includes information on the original
tabular data providers, redistribution restrictions, original data citations/URLs, the number of data units per administrative
level, and the name of each administrative level (such as district, municipality, etc.).

The third part of this worksheet, columns AAAH, describes the spatial data. This includes information on the original
spatial data providers, redistribution restrictions, and the number of data units per administrative level.

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The fourth part of this worksheet, columns AKAO, provides information on the poverty lines used to create the
variables in each country. It includes the value of the poverty line (in local currency) used to generate poverty measures,
the monetary units (currency) that the poverty line is calculated in, estimates of the poverty lines values in US dollars,
descriptions of alternate poverty lines used for comparative poverty measures, and estimates of the alternate poverty lines
in US dollars.