Abstract:
The Small Area Estimates of Poverty and Inequality dataset consists of consumption-based poverty, inequality and related measures for subnational administrative units in approximately twenty countries throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. These measures are derived on a country-level basis from a combination of census and survey data using small area estimates
... techniques. The collection of data have been compiled, integrated and standardized from the original data providers into a unified spatially referenced and globally consistent dataset. The data products include shapefiles (vector data), tabular datasets (csv format), and centroids (csv file with latitude and longitude of a geographic unit and associated poverty estimates). Additionally, a data catalog (xls format) containing detailed information and documentation is provided. This dataset is produced by the Columbia University Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) in collaboration with a number of external data providers.
The data in Comma Separated Value (CSV), ESRI Shapefile (SHP) formats and maps in Portable Document (PDF) and Portable Network Graphics (PNG) formats are available from the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). 
