code + data for "The global poverty gap is falling. Billionaires could help close it"
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2016/01/20-global-poverty-gap-chandy-noe-zhang
 
Laurence Chandy (lchandy@brookings.edu)
Lorenz Noe (lnoe@brookings.edu)
Christine Zhang (cyzhang@brookings.edu)
Brookings Institution
January 2016
  
R scripts:
 
"costs_allyrs.R" -
 
script to generate cost of filling global poverty gap for the lined-up years in the World Bank's PovcalNet(every 3 years from 1981 through 2012). 

We first use the poverty gap to calculate a cost of filling the gap in 2011 PPP dollars, then we use PPP exchange rate ratios and the U.S. CPI to convert to market dollars. We also merge in 2015’s estimated cost & yearly foreign aid values to produce Figure 1 (output file of underlying data provided among data files below)
 
> Data files used + sources:

* poverty_worldbank.csv -
 
data on extreme poverty rate ("hcr") and gap ("gap") by country, downloaded via the World Bank's PovcalNet http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/. Extreme poverty is defined as living under $1.90/day in 2011 PPP prices
 
we use the $1.25/day 2005 PPP line for a few countries, based on ‘A global count of the extreme poor in 2012 : data issues, methodology and initial results’ http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2015/10/25114899/global-count-extreme-poor-2012-data-issues-methodology-initial-results. These are denoted by countries for which the "line" variable is listed as 1.25 rather than 1.90
 
"type" refers to whether the survey type is consumption or income
 
* ppp_conversion.csv -
 
global price data, including PPP conversion factors for household final consumption expenditure ("ppp"), market exchange rates ("exch"), and the ratio of the two ("ratio")
 
"source" provides origin of the data - for most countries, these are from “icp” - i.e., the latest (2011) round of the International Comparison Program: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/ICPEXT/Resources/ICP_2011.html
 
* countries_povcal.csv -
 
list of 155 countries & territories that comprise the complete set of countries in the "developing world", per p. 4 of 'Data deprivation : another deprivation to end': http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2015/04/24426058/data-deprivation-another-deprivation-end
 
* cost_regions_2015.csv -
 
2015 by-region cost to fill the poverty gap in 2015 US$ Millions ("PG_usd_15_total") estimated by our model, described in ‘The Final Countdown: Prospects for Ending Extreme Poverty by 2030’ http://www.brookings.edu/research/interactives/2013/ending-extreme-poverty  using the most recent survey data from the World Bank, projecting forward to 2015, and assigning regional averages to missing countries. Please contact us at the email addresses above for more detail.
 
* oda_oecd.csv -
 
data via stats.oecd.org on Net Official Development Assistance Disbursements in 2013 US$ Millions

* fig1.csv -

output file of underlying data from Figure 1 (cost to fill poverty gap against net ODA disbursements)

"forbes_analysis.R" -
 
script to compare Forbes 2015 billionaires net worth with cost of filling poverty gap. For Tables 1 and 2 we analyze countries with > 2% extreme poverty and at least one billionaire.
 
> Data files used + sources:
 
* datasheet.csv -
 
complete dataset on billionaires and poverty gaps by country
 
Forbes data from http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/ - note Forbes columns are NA for countries that do not have extreme poverty estimates (e.g., the U.S.)
 
"worth" (2015 net worth) and "realTimeWorth" (net worth as of Jan 13 2016) are in current US$ Millions
 
2015 population data ("pop") in Millions are from the UN: http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/
 
2015 cost of filling poverty gap in 2015 US$ Millions ("PG_usd_15") and 2015 extreme poverty rate ("hcr") are estimated by our model, described in described in ‘The Final Countdown: Prospects for Ending Extreme Poverty by 2030’ http://www.brookings.edu/research/interactives/2013/ending-extreme-poverty using the most recent survey data from the World Bank, projecting forward to 2015, and assigning regional averages to missing countries. Please contact us at the email addresses above for more detail.
 
Note 2015 population & poverty data are NA for countries that do not have billionaires.