Jong-goo Park. Divisi'on Working Paper No October 1980

Transcription

1 Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized EPD INCOME DISTRIBUTION PROJECT DATA ON THEl Jong-goo Park DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME IN EL SALVADOR Divisi'on Working Paper No October 1980 Economic and Social Data Division Economic Analysis and Projections Department Development Policy Staff The World Bank Division Working Papers report on work in progress and are circulated for Bank staff use to stimulate discussion and comment. The views and interpretations in a Working Paper are those of the author and may not be attributed to the World Bank or its affiliated organizations. DRAFT

2 DATA ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME IN EL SALVADOR This paper contains an evaluation of the data on the distribution of income in El Salvador from a 1976/77 survey of household budgets. The paper then adjusts data from the survey, and derives a more representative distribution of income for the country by household. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DATA DIVISION ECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND PROJECTIONS DEPARTMENT OCTOBER 1980

3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page I. Introduction II. The 1976/77 Survey of Household Budgets (ENPF). 2 III. Evaluation of the 1976/77 ENPF IV. Data Adjustment and Estimation of Household Income Distribution Appendix Tables

4 DATA ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME IN EL SALVADOR I. Introduction 1. This paper briefly reviews the data on the distribution of income in El Salvador and evaluates the country's 1976/77 survey of household budgets. It then derives an estimate of income distribution in El Salvador by household for 1976/ There are two national surveys which provide information on income distribution in El Salvador. One is the 1975 Encuesta Nacional de Mano de Obra y Aspectos Demograficos (ENMOAD). It was a national survey on the labor force and on demographics, and provides data on distribution of income for individual income earners for the period April-June 1975 (Appendix Table A-1). The second survey is the 1976/77 Encuesta Nacional de Presupuestos Familiars (ENPF), a national surve' of household budgets which provides data on income distribution by household for the whole country. 3. The final report on the ENPF survey has not yet been published. Preliminary reports / include data on distribution of income by individual income earner, by household, and by household member (per capita household income). A summary of the data on per capita distribution of income (with households classified into percentile groups and ranked according to per capita income) /1 Ministerio de Planificacion y Coordinacion, Banco Central de Reserva and Direccion General de Estadistica y Census, Caracteristicas de los Hogares y delas Viviendas, San Salvador, May 1979; " t Distribucion del Ingreso por Deciles de Perceptores," (mimeo), November 1978; "'Algunos Resultados de la Encuesta Nacional de Presupuestos Familiares ( ) y Calculo de Coefficientes de Elasticidad-Ingreso del Gasto, de los Principales Subgrupos de Articulos Consumidos por las Familias Salvadorenas," (mimeo), undated; ttmuestra de Hogares," (mimeo), April 1978.

5 was published in the 1980 Social Indicators Data Sheets of the World Bank.. II. The 1976/77 Survey of Household Budgets (ENPF) 4. The 1976/77 ENPF was conducted by the Planning Ministry (Ministerio de Planificacion y Coordinacion del Desarrollo Economico y Social) in collaboration with the Central Bank and National Statistics and Census Office, between August 1976 and July Its purpose was to obtain information on household income and expenditures, consumption patterns, employment, levels of education and characteristics of dwellings. 5. The survey sample contained 3,227 private house-holds, about 0.4% of the total private households in the country. A household was defined as including one or more persons, not necessarily related, sharing the same dwelling and contributing to a common budget. Household income was defined as the after-tax income of all members of the household, including income both in cash and in kind, transfers, imputed rents from owner-occupied dwellings and production consumed by the producer. III. Evaluation of the 1976/77 ENPF Under-Reporting of Income 6. The 1976/77 ENPF data on distribution of per capita household income shows that El Salvador's total household income amounted to 3,658.4 million colones for an estimated population of 4.29 million in 1976/77./2 The population estimates derived from the survey is comparable to that of 4.11 million derived from other official sources. /3 As a rough check on the total household /1 Shail Jain's Size Distribution of Income (World Bank, 1975) includes a few estimates of El Salvador's income distribution for earlier years. Data used for these estimates were not available Lor evaluation of the estimates. /2 See the Appendix, Tables A-2, A-3 and A-4 for the original ENPF data. /3 Ministerio de Planificacion y Coordinacion and Latin American Demographic Center.

6 -3- income yielded by the survey, that figure was compared with private consumption expenditures derived from the country's national accounts. The former was 83 percent of the latter. This implies that income was under-reported in the survey, since private consumption expenditures are expected to be less than aggregate personal income in El Salvador (see Table 1, below). 7. Because of the lack of data on average household income by income class, it was not possible to assess directly the under-reporting of income by different income classes. Preliminary data obtained for only a part (August- October 1976) of the whole survey period provide average household income and expenditures by broad income classes. These data show that as average household income increases, the expenditure-income ratio decreases until there is a sudden rise in the 'top" income class (average monthly income of over 1,000 colones) (Table 1). There is no evidence of under-reporting of expenditures by the "top" income class. This suggests relatively greater under-reporting of income by this class, since its average savings ratio is normally expected to be the highest (or the expenditure-income ratio the lowest) of the classes in the country. /1 A more proper comparison would have been between total household income derived from survey data and personal income from the national accounts. There were not enough data to derive the latter in El Salvador. Since in the national acconts, private consumption expenditures are normally less than personal income, certainly household income, which is less than private consumption expenditures, will also be less than the national accounts personal income.

7 -4 Table 1: AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD MONTHLY INCOME AND EXPENDITURES, 1976/77 Income Class Percentage of Average Average (colones) Households Income (Y) Expenditure (C) C/Y ; r , , , TOTAL Source: Encesta Nacional de Presupuestos Familiares, first trimester (August-October 1976), preliminary results. 8. Zero income was reported by 1,736 urban households (0.5% of total urban households)./- However, the data show that 590 out of the 1,738 households owned an automobile, refrigerator and telephone, indicating quite comfortable living. This, together with the fact that household income in the survey included transfers and income in kind, implies non-reporting of income. IV. Data Adjustment and Estimation of Household Income Distribution 9. The 19.76/77 ENPF data on income distribution by household include only distribution of households by income classes (Appendix, Table A-5). For all income classes except the lowest and the highest, average household income was assumed to be equal to the median of the corresponding income range (Appendix, Table A-6). /1 Caracteristicas de los Hogares y de las Viviendas, op. cit., Tables N4, N5 and N6.

8 For thre highest and open-ended class of urban households, average household income was derived by the use of an estimated Pareto coefficient. Multiplying this average income by the ratio between average incomes of rural and urban high income classes, the average income of the highest rural income class was derived. This average income ratio was derived from survey data for the three months, August - October 1976.'! 11. For the lowest rural income class (monthly income less than 50 colones), the. estimate of average household income was based on the median income of the next lowest income class (between 50 and 99 colones) and the reported average income (68.4 colones) for a class combining the two. For the urban area, the 590 households reporting zero income but owning automobiles were reclassified into the automobile ownership became apparent. 599 colon income class where private The average income of the remaining 1,146 households reporting zero income was assumed to be equal to that of the lowest income urban class, in turn assumed to be equal to the average earnings of a worker in the lowest paid urban job (the latter was estimated using data from the 1975 national employment survey CENMOAD), taking into account increases in domestic food prices between and 1977). 12. Using the average household incomes as derived in paragraphs 9 to 11 above, income distribution was estimated for 1976/77 (Appendix, Table A-8). " Income distribution by decile household groups was then derived in addition, as follows: /1 See the Appendix,Table A-7 for survey data on average household income by urban and rural areas for the period August-October /2 Total household income derived from these adjusted data was 88 percent of the private consumption expenditures in the national accounts for 1976/77,

9 Table 2: HOUSEHOLD INCOME DISTRIBUTION,1976/77 ADJUSTED Cumulative % Cumulative % of Household Income/a ol Households Urbani Rural National (95) (78.4) (77.1) (75.2) Gini Coefficient /a Derived from the Appendix Table A-8,by linear interpolation between two adjacent income classes. 13. The adjusted data on which the estimates of income distribution are based may be open to some criticisms. Notwithstanding these critic'sms, the following conclusions about income distribution can be safely made: - Household income is distributed more equally in rural than in urban areas (Table 2); and - The inequality in the distribution of income appears to be greater when households are ranked by income for the entire household, as opposed to per capita household income (Table 3). The latter approximates income distribution by household when adjusted for differences in household size,

10 -7- Table 3: INCOME INEQUALITY MEASURES FOR 1976/77 - Income Share (%) Income Share (M) Gini of Lowest 20% of of Highest 20% of Data Source Coefficient Income Group Income Group Adjusted ENPF (distribution of households ranked according to household income) Original ENPF (Social Indicators Sheets) (distribution of households ranked according to per capita household income)

11 Table A-1:-EL SALVADOR--TOTAL EMPLOYMENT BY SECTORS AND INCOME LEVELS, 1975 (in percentages) Electrici- Transp,ort Income level ty, Gas Construc- and Commu- Financial Serxvices Unspe- (colones) Agriculture Mining Industry and Water tion Commerce nications Services cified w/o renumneration h I i6.o '.l i O o.6 o.o oC o and Over TOTAL Total Prequency 586,016 1, ,650 4,307 48,, ,155 29,663 6, ,011 2,888 (No. of wor-kers) ~t Note: Columns may not total because of rounding. Source: Encuesta Nacional de Manio de Obra y Aspectos Demograficos, April-July, 1975.

12 Appendix -9- Table A-2 DISTRIBUTION OF URBAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME, BY PERCENTILE HOUSEHOLD GROUPS, RANKED ACCORDING TO PER CAPITA HOUSEHOLD-INCOME, 1976/77 Per Capita Total Household Income Household Income Households (1,OO. - - (coloties/month) No. % colones/month) % , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , TOTAL 361, , Source: "Muestra de Hogares," op. cit. p.11.

13 Appendix Table A-3 DISTRIBUTION OF RURAL HOUSEHOLD INCOME, BY PERCENTILE HOUSEHOLD GROUPS, RANKED ACCORDING TO PER CAPITA HOUSEHOLD INCOME, 1976/77 Per Capita Total Household Income Household Income Households (1,000- (colones/month) No. % colones/month) % , , , ,156.* , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , TOTAL 437, , Source: "Muestra de Hogares," op. cit.

14 Appendix 11 - Table A-4 DISTRIBUTION OF NATIONAL HOUSEHOLD INCOME, BY PERCENTILE HOUSEHOLD GROUPS, RANKED ACCORDING TO PER CAPITA HOUSEHOLD INCOME, 1976/77 Per Capita Total Household Income Household Income Households (1,000 (colones/month) No. Colones/mor.th) % , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , TOTAL 798, , Source: "Muestra de Hogares," op. cit. p.6.

15 Appendix able A-S: DISTRIBUTION OF HOUSEHOLDS BY INCOME CLASSES, 1976/77 Monthly Urban Rural National Income Class -Nor of % of No. of % of No. of % of (colones) Households Households Households Households Households Households 0 1, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,000-1,999 32, , , ,000-3,999 8, , , , ,475 o , LOTAL 361, , , Source: Caracteristicas de los Hogares y de las Viviendas, op. cit., Tables N.1 - V.1.

16 Appendix Table A-6: DISTRIBUTION OF HOUSEHOLDS BY LEVEL OF AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD MONTHLY INCOME, 1976/77 (ADJUSTED) Urban Rural National Ave. Income No. of Ave. Income No. of Ave. Income No. of (colones) Households (colones) Households (colones) Households 62 6, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,728 1,500 32,400 1,500 5,309 1,500 37,709 2,500 8,574 2,500 1,451 2,500 10,025 6,692 1,475 6, ,767 2,138 Note: The average household income was derived from Table A-5, except for the lowest and highest classes. For those, see paragraphs 11 and 12 in the text.

17 Appendix Table A-7: AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD INCOME BY URBAN AND RURAL AREAS, AUGUST - OCTOBER 1976 Monthly Urban Rural Income Class Percentage of Ave. Income Percentage of Ave. Income (colones) Households (c;olones/month) Households (colones/month) 0 -~ , , ,846.6 TOTAL Source: "Algunos Resultados de la Encuesta Nacional de Presupuestos Familiares ( )...," op. cit., Tables 1-A and 1-B.

18 Table A-8: DISTRIBUTION OF HOUSEHOLD INCOME, 1976/77'- (ADJUSTED) URBAN RURAL NATIONAL % of % of % of Average % of Household Average % of Household Average % of Household Income Households Income Income Households Income Income Households Income , , , , , , , , , TOTAL /a Derived from Table A-7. Note: Columns may not total because of rounding