Using Machine Learning to Predict Poverty Status in Costa Rican Households

Ji Yoon Kim

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arXiv · 2111.13319

Using Machine Learning to Predict Poverty Status in Costa Rican Households

Ji Yoon Kim

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Abstract

This study presents two supervised multiclassification machine learning models to predict the poverty status of Costa Rican households as a way to support government and business sectors make decisions in a rapidly changing social and economic environment. Using the Costa Rican household dataset collected via the proxy means test conducted by the Inter-American Development Bank, Random Forest and Gradient Boosted Trees achieved F1 scores of 64.9% and 68.4%, respectively. This study also reveals that education has the greatest impact on predicting poverty status.

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Ji Yoon Kim. 2021-11-26. Using Machine Learning to Predict Poverty Status in Costa Rican Households. https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.13319

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