Estimating Poverty Transitions in Turkey Using Repeated Cross-Sectional Data

Abstract

In order to fight poverty more effectively, it is vital to determine the extent to which households are chronic or transient poor. In this context, this paper has two aims. The first is to estimate poverty transition between 2006 and 2016 in Turkey using a newly developed synthetic panel method. With this method, the transition of poverty between two-time points can be estimated without the need for real panel data. The second aim of the study is to test how well this method works. To this end, the analysis has been performed once again by using real panel data for the years 2006-2009 and 2013-2016. The findings show that the percentage of households those who chronically poor is between 3.9% and 10.7%, the percentage of those who escaped from poverty is between 12.1% and 20.8% and the percentage of those who fall into poverty is between 5.4% and 12.2%. The analysis with actual panel data has revealed that the method works quite well.