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is roughly similar, except that males are 0.06% less likely to be poor than females.<br />

Increase <strong>in</strong> the number of days worked significantly decreases the probability of poverty<br />

<strong>in</strong> our sample. All of the components of Table 5.5 together verify the causes of poverty<br />

that has received a great deal of attention <strong>in</strong> the previous poverty literature <strong>and</strong> that<br />

gives us a great deal of confidence that the<br />

5.2.5 The effect of <strong>spatial</strong> <strong>in</strong>equality <strong>in</strong> social <strong>in</strong>frastructure on rural poverty<br />

While current <strong>policy</strong> attention to human capital accumulation for poverty alleviation <strong>in</strong><br />

develop<strong>in</strong>g countries is clearly appropriate, the long st<strong>and</strong><strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>attention of the<br />

governments <strong>in</strong> these countries to the effect of distribution of social <strong>in</strong>frastructure on<br />

poverty has been costly. However, the magnitude of these effects on poverty rema<strong>in</strong>s<br />

ambiguous. Therefore, the central question we wish to answer <strong>in</strong> this part of the report<br />

is straightforward: does <strong>spatial</strong> <strong>in</strong>equality <strong>in</strong> social <strong>in</strong>frastructure affect rural poverty <strong>in</strong><br />

Pakistan?<br />

We exam<strong>in</strong>e this relationship by evaluat<strong>in</strong>g the impact of pr<strong>in</strong>cipal component postprimary<br />

school system <strong>and</strong> hospital <strong>in</strong>dex. We consider the relationship by estimat<strong>in</strong>g<br />

an augmented probit model where <strong>in</strong> addition to the variables considered <strong>in</strong> the basic<br />

model we also <strong>in</strong>troduce six factor component education <strong>and</strong> health <strong>in</strong>dices discussed <strong>in</strong><br />

Chapter 4, Section 4.3.3. We rely on district level factor component education <strong>and</strong><br />

health <strong>in</strong>dices that are more apt to be exogenous to a household. Because factor<br />

component education <strong>and</strong> health <strong>in</strong>dices vary across districts <strong>and</strong> are correlated with<br />

district dummy variables, we do not <strong>in</strong>clude district effects <strong>in</strong> these regressions.<br />

Moreover, all st<strong>and</strong>ard errors account for district level <strong>cluster</strong><strong>in</strong>g <strong>and</strong> also allow general<br />

form of heteroskedasticity.<br />

The estimation results <strong>in</strong> Table 5.6, column 1 reveal that improvements <strong>in</strong> local<br />

education <strong>and</strong> health facilities do not produce uniform effects on poverty alleviation.<br />

Only pr<strong>in</strong>cipal component post-primary school system & hospital <strong>in</strong>dex is negatively<br />

<strong>and</strong> significantly correlated with rural poverty: an <strong>in</strong>crease <strong>in</strong> this <strong>in</strong>dex by 2.48 (<strong>its</strong><br />

st<strong>and</strong>ard deviation) decreases the probability of poverty by 1.98%. However, the<br />

358

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