“…The variables used in the study are measured as follows: different variables are used as measures of poverty in empirical studies. Headcount-based data for the poor (Omar and Inaba, 2020;Baloch et al, 2020;Kousar and Shabbir, 2021;Solarin, 2021;Ogbeide-Osaretin, 2021), income (Adekoya, 2018), infant mortality (Tsaurai, 2018;Magombeyi and Odhiambo, 2018;Khobai, 2021;Solarin, 2021), life expectancy (Magombeyi and Odhiambo, 2018;Tsaurai, 2018), multidimensional poverty index (Aziz et al, 2020;Osinubi and Olomola, 2020) and human development index (Nwani and Osuji, 2020) are used as proxy for poverty in some studies. Some other studies used per capita consumption expenditure as proxy for poverty due to the lack of data on poverty (Quartey, 2008;Odhiambo, 2009;Odhiambo, 2011;Nayasha, Gwenhure and Odhiambo, 2017;Sehrawat and Giri, 2018;Adeleye et al, 2020;Dada and Fanowopo, 2020;Garidzirai and Matiza, 2020).…”