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Proxy means test (PMT) poverty targeting tools have become common tools for beneficiary targeting and poverty assessment where full means tests are costly. Currently popular estimation procedures for generating these tools prioritize minimization of in-sample prediction errors; however, the objective in generating such tools is out-of-sample prediction. This paper presents evidence that prioritizing minimal out-of-sample error, identified through cross-validation and stochastic ensemble methods, in PMT tool development can substantially improve the out-of-sample performance of these targeting tools. The USAID poverty assessment tool and base data are used for demonstration of these methods; however, the methods applied in this paper should be considered for PMT and other poverty-targeting tool development more broadly.

Poverty --- Poverty Assessment --- Proxy Means Testing --- Targeting

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Proxy advisory firms --- Investment advisors --- Stockholders' voting --- Proxy --- Legal status, laws, etc. --- Law and legislation

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Beneficiaries of the ongoing safety net program Burkin-Naong-Saya in Burkina Faso are selected based on a multi-step targeting strategy. One part of this strategy is Proxy Means Testing (PMT). The current PMT method, however, was developed using outdated 2009 data. This study uses a new, nationally representative household survey conducted in 2014 to evaluate the efficiency of updated PMT models. The findings are three-fold. First, a single national PMT model is preferable to urban/rural-specific models. Second, while the updated national model performs better than the old model in selecting the poorest urban households, it does not perform as well as the 2009 model in rural areas. Since rural areas are the current focus of the intervention, the PMT formula should not be changed. Third, parsimonious PMT models using only variables from HEA questionnaires are almost as efficient as models that use a much larger number of variables. This allows for PMT targeting based on HEA data, without the need for prior PMT data collection.

Inequality --- Poverty Assessment --- Poverty Lines --- Poverty Reduction --- Proxy Means Test --- Services and Transfers to Poor

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The concept of regression was introduced by Legendre in 1805 and advanced by Gauss in 1809. The term was popularized after Galton's 1886 article. Contribution of R. A. Fisher in the early 20th century was instrumental to the spread of the method to every scientific branch. Regression analysis, used in economics and many other fields, is now the most commonly used statistical method. Although few would characterize this technique as simple, regression is in fact both simple and elegant. The complexity that many attribute to regression analysis is often a reflection of their lack of familiarity with the language of mathematics. But regression analysis can be understood even without the mastery of sophisticated mathematical concepts. This book provides the foundation of regression analysis in a way that is easy to comprehend. All the examples are from economics and in almost all the examples real data are used to show the application of the method.

Economics --- Regression analysis. --- Statistical methods. --- analysis --- causality --- ceteris paribus --- coefficient of determination --- control variables --- error --- goodness of fit --- inference --- misspecification --- model --- proxy variables --- regression --- spurious regression --- Stata

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Renaissance Papers collects the best scholarly essays submitted each year to the Southeastern Renaissance Conference. The 2015 volume features essays from the conference held at the Universityof North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as well as essays submitted directly to the journal. The volume opens with a trio of reconsiderations of the impact of patronage on theater under the Stuarts, the role of the audience in Hamlet, and the role of King Arthur in The Faerie Queene. The heart of this year's journal is English drama, featuring essays on anxieties about nationhood in TheSpanish Tragedy, generic anomalies and Chaucerian echoes in All's Well That Ends Well, the inversion of the hagiographical tradition in Shakespeare's Richard III, and the complexities coalescing around authorial identity under the Stuarts. In the penultimate essay, the focus shifts to the non-dramatic with a reconsideration of Milton's Paradise Regained and its relationship to the court masque. The last offering is a historical essay on the intersection of the personal and the political in John Wray's The Pilgrim's Journal. The volume concludes with four book reviews. Contributors: David M. Bergeron, William A. Coulter, Timothy D. Crowley, Melissa Geil, Lainie Pomerleau, Robert Lanier Reid, Emily Stockard, Lewis Walker, John N. Wall. The journal is edited by Jim Pearce of North Carolina Central University and Ward Risvold of the University of Georgia.

Renaissance. --- Renaissance --- Revival of letters --- Civilization --- History, Modern --- Civilization, Medieval --- Civilization, Modern --- Humanism --- Middle Ages --- History --- English literature --- History and criticism --- Great Britain --- All's Well That Ends Well. --- Anglo-Norman Siege Engines. --- Audience. --- Court Masque. --- Crusades. --- Cultural Anxieties. --- English Drama. --- Fourteenth Century. --- Hamlet. --- Iberia. --- Irregular Forces. --- King Arthur. --- Medieval Warfare. --- Muslim Responses. --- Nationhood. --- Paradise Regained. --- Patronage. --- Proxy Actors. --- Renaissance Papers. --- Richard III. --- Spanish Tragedy. --- The Faerie Queene.