arXiv Machine Learning

Crowd-Sourced Geographies of Income: Using Google Maps Points of Interest as High-Frequency Proxies for Sub-Municipal Income Estimation in Sao Paulo, Brazil

arXiv:2608. 07871v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Accurate, up-to-date income data at the sub-municipal scale is essential for social policy in middle-income countries, yet in Brazil it depends on a costly decennial census whose intercensal gap recently exceeded a decade.

arXiv Machine Learning
5d ago

DeepC4: Deep Conditional Census-Constrained Clustering for Large-scale Multitask Spatial Disaggregation of Urban Morphology

DeepC4 is a deep learning-based spatial disaggregation method that uses local census statistics as cluster-level constraints and incorporates multiple conditional label relationships in a multitask learning framework. Applied to Rwandan urban morphology, it achieves macro‑F1 scores of 0.63, 0.78, and 0.45 for roof, wall, and height prediction, respectively, and estimates national dwelling and occupant counts within about 1.1% error compared to census records. The approach outperforms existing GEM and METEOR methods and covers 32‑49% more 500‑meter grid pixels across provinces.

By Joshua Dimasaka, Christian Gei{\ss}, Emily So
arXiv AI
Sep 15

Transfer Learning for Socioeconomic Estimation in Forced-Displacement Settings

The paper presents a transfer‑learning approach that adapts a multimodal spatiotemporal vision transformer, originally trained on Demographic and Health Survey data, to estimate socioeconomic conditions in forced‑displacement settings. Using satellite‑derived geospatial covariates, the adapted model explains up to 66% of variation in socioeconomic outcomes in camp‑intersecting grids and 41% in non‑camp areas, achieving mean absolute errors of 4.37 and 5.41 index points respectively. This framework supplements periodic household surveys by providing regularly updated, spatially granular socioeconomic estimates that bridge data gaps between survey rounds.

By Steven Ndung'u, Adel Daoud, Ismael Yacoubou Djima, Hai-Anh H. Dang, Patrick Michael Brock
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 27

Beyond Point Predictions: Uncertainty-Aware Satellite Poverty Mapping for Public Policy

The paper presents an uncertainty‑aware machine‑learning approach for mapping poverty in Africa using satellite imagery. By combining simultaneous quantile regression with a novel conformal prediction technique, the authors generate statistically guaranteed prediction intervals for neighborhood‑level International Wealth Index estimates, achieving high explanatory power (R² = 0.75) while acknowledging broader uncertainty. They also propose a risk‑controlled aid allocation procedure that leverages both survey data and model predictions, showing in simulations that it can deliver more aid per eligible recipient than alternative strategies.

By Markus B. Pettersson, James Bailie, Mohammad Kakooei, Eagon Meng, Adel Daoud
arXiv Statistics ML
2d ago

Dynamic Spatial Bayesian Machine Learning Model: Applications to Intergenerational Economic Mobility and Geographic Income Inequality in the United States

The paper introduces DSP‑BART‑HS, a Dynamic Spatial Panel Bayesian Additive Regression Trees model with Horseshoe shrinkage, designed for high‑dimensional spatio‑temporal panel data. Across nine simulated scenarios, the model outperforms or matches a wide range of spatial econometric, non‑parametric machine learning, and small‑area estimators, especially when individual‑level non‑linearity drives outcome variance. The authors validate the method on two U.S. county‑level applications—intergenerational economic mobility and geographic income inequality—showing strong predictive accuracy even under unseen‑region, random, and temporal holdouts, while noting a temporal extrapolation advantage for a simpler autoregressive model.

By Hammed A. Olayinka, Saheed O. Olayemi