There are a number of technical questions that could be explored with further work. One such question is what level of disaggregation can be handled satisfactorily. Similarly, what time-gaps between estimation and application of the model can be handled; as the LFSs move further away from the last administered household consumption survey, the assumption that the consumption model has not changed over time becomes increasingly optimistic, in which case the imputation-based poverty estimates are expected to become less reliable. Other empirical questions include: Are upward and downward trends captured equally well? Can other moments of the income distribution, such as average income and inequality, be captured equally well? And, can we generally say something about the conditions under which the approach is expected to do well or not so well? Further empirical work is needed to answer these questions.

Finally, in order to strengthen the validation of the proposed approach some alternative tests could be explored. For example, instead of imputing household expenditure one could consider a model for a dependent variable that is readily available in the LFS (such as education, employment or durable assets). This has the important advantage that imputed data can be compared to actual observed data for all available rounds of the LFS.

# **9. Concluding remarks**

The paper has shown that Labor Force Surveys (LFSs) can be used effectively to estimate poverty when Household Expenditure Surveys (HESs) are not available. We have used cross-survey imputation methods to estimate poverty rates for Morocco and obtained a quarterly series for the period 20012010.

Results are very encouraging. We constructed first a consumption model based on the 2001 HCS data and a second model based on the 2007 HCS data. We then used the 2001 model to estimate poverty with the 2001 and 2007 HCS data and, vice-versa, used the 2007 model to estimate poverty for both the 2001 and 2007 years. The imputation-based poverty estimates are found to be close to the official poverty estimates, regardless of which model is used. Next, we used the 2001 and 2007 consumption models to estimate poverty with the LFSs for the period 2001-2010; also here we obtained almost overlapping quarterly poverty trends, even when we disaggregated by urban and rural areas.

This exercise provided several new insights for the study of poverty in Morocco. The imputation methodology adopted has implicitly validated the quality and comparability of the 2001 and 2007 HESs and the quality and consistency of the LFSs used. The decline in poverty depicted by the estimated quarterly poverty rates has shown that Morocco has been able to withstand domestic and global shocks, a finding that would not have been possible with the 2001 and 2007 HESs alone. Disaggregated poverty estimates at the regional level show that the poverty trends in Morocco have not been homogeneous across regions, a finding that was not visible when only two points in time were considered. As a byproduct of this work, the High Commission for the Plan of Morocco can now estimate poverty rates every quarter and within weeks of the administration of the LFSs.

24