Albania, then known as Rumelia, was a province of the Ottoman Empire from the fifteenth century until it declared it's independence in 1912. Following a series of unsuccessful uprisings and brief occupations from nearby Serbia and Greece, Albania finally claimed its independence on November 28, 1912; however the Conference of London in 1913 then set the borders of the former-Ottoman states in Southern Europe, which left many ethnic Albanians living in other neighboring states, particularly Serbia (and what is now Kosovo). The newly-formed Albanian state collapsed in the wake of the First World War, and was controlled in parts by Greece, Italy and Serbia. The Paris Conference then established an independent Albanian state, which led to a period of political and economic turmoil that lasted until Italy's annexation of the region in 1939, during the Second World War. It is estimated that just under 3 percent of Albania's population perished as a direct result of the war, as Albania became the main theater for the Axis Powers' war against Greece. Italy then surrendered control of the area to Germany in 1943, and after the war ended in 1945, Albania became a Yugoslav satellite state and remained behind the Iron Curtain until it's collapse in the 1990s. Steady growth during the communist era From the war's end onwards, Albania's population enjoyed steady growth and almost tripled by 1990. Throughout this time, Albania underwent a series of political allegiances; first as a Yugoslav and then Soviet satellite states, but then became an important actor in the Sino-Soviet split, eventually siding with China in the 1960s. Gradually, Albania transitioned into a more isolationist and independent country in in the 1970s, and slowly adopted some more democratic practices. The total population surpassed two million people in the late 1960s, and three million in the late 1980s, but then a dramatic change in population growth occurred in the 1990s, as communism in Europe came to an end. Immediate decline following communism's end Increased freedom of movement, improved access to contraception and major lifestyle changes caused the population to fall into decline. The population did increase in the late 90s, despite a civil war in the first half of 1997 (in which over 2 thousand people died) sparked by a failure of the financial system in Albania. The Albanian Army was also involved in the war in neighboring Kosovo between 1998 and 1999. The 2000s brought about further decline, and the population is just 2.9 million in 2020, a decline of approximately 400,000 people in thirty years. Albania has been a candidate for accession to the EU since 2014, and membership would bring further change to the country.

countries capital city Tirana. name, long name, population (source), population, constitutional form, drives on, head of state authority, Main continent, number of airports, Airports - with paved runways, Airports - with unpaved runways, Area, Birth rate, calling code, Children under the age of 5 years underweight, Current Account Balance, Death rate, Debt - external, Economic aid donor, Electricity consumption, Electricity consumption per capita, Electricity exports, Electricity imports, Electricity production, Exports, GDP - per capita (PPP), GDP (purchasing power parity), GDP real growth rate, Gross national income, Human Development Index, Health expenditures, Heliports, HIV AIDS adult prevalence rate, HIV AIDS deaths, HIV AIDS people living with HIV AIDS, Hospital bed density, capital city, Currency, Imports, Industrial production growth rate, Infant mortality rate, Inflation rate consumer prices, Internet hosts, internet tld, Internet users, Investment (gross fixed), iso 3166 code, ISO CODE, Labor force, Life expectancy at birth, Literacy, Manpower available for military service, Manpower fit for military service, Manpower reaching militarily age annually, is democracy, Market value of publicly traded shares, Maternal mortality rate, Merchant marine, Military expenditures percent of GDP, Natural gas consumption, Natural gas consumption per capita, Natural gas exports, Natural gas imports, Natural gas production, Natural gas proved reserves, Net migration rate, Obesity adult prevalence rate, Oil consumption, Oil consumption per capita, Oil exports, Oil imports, Oil production, Oil proved reserves, Physicians density, Population below poverty line, Population census, Population density, Population estimate, Population growth rate, Public debt, Railways, Reserves of foreign exchange and gold, Roadways, Stock of direct foreign investment abroad, Stock of direct foreign investment at home, Telephones main lines in use, Telephones main lines in use per capita, Telephones mobile cellular, Telephones mobile cellular per capita, Total fertility rate, Unemployment rate, Unemployment, youth ages 15-24, Waterways, valley, helicopter, canyon, artillery, crater, religion, continent, border, Plateau, marsh, Demonym

Abstract

Over the past decade, Albania has been undergoing a transition toward a market economy and a more open society. It has faced severe internal and external challenges, such as lack of basic infrastructure, rapid collapse of output and inflation rise after the collapse of the communist regime, turmoil during the 1997 pyramid crisis, and social and economic instability because of the 1999 Kosovo crisis. Despite these shocks, Albanian economy has recovered from a very low income level through a sustained growth during the past few years, even though it remains one of the poorest countries in Europe, with GDP per capita at around 1,300$. Based on the Living Standard Measurement Study (LSMS) 2002 survey data (wave 1, henceforth), for the first time in Albania INSTAT has computed an absolute poverty line on a nationally representative poverty survey at household level. Based on this welfare measure, one quarter (25.4 percent) of the Albanian population, or close to 790,000 individuals, were defined as poor in 2002. The distribution of poverty is also disproportionately rural, as 68 percent of the poor are in rural areas, against 32 percent in urban areas (as compared to a total urban population well over 40 percent). These estimates are quite sensitive to the choice of the poverty line, as there are a large number of households clustered around the poverty line. Income related poverty is compounded by the severe lack of access to basic infrastructure, education and health services, clean water, etc., and the ability of the Government to address these issues is complicated by high levels of internal and external migration that are not well understood. The availability of a nationally representative survey is crucial as the paucity of household-level information has been a constraining factor in the design, implementation and evaluation of economic and social programs in Albania. Two recent surveys carried out by the Albanian Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) -the 1998 Living Conditions Survey (LCS) and the 2000 Household Budget Survey (HBS) - drew attention, once again, to the need for accurately measuring household welfare according to well-accepted standards, and for monitoring these trends on a regular basis. This target is well-achieved by drawing information over time on a panel component of LSMS 2002 households, namely the Albanian Panel Survey (APS), conducted in 2003 and 2004. An increasing attention to the policies aimed at achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is paid by the National Parliament of Albania, recently witnessed by the resolution approved in July 2003, where it pushes “… the total commitment of both state structures and civil society to achieve the MDGs in Albania by 2015”. The path towards a sustained growth is constantly monitored through the National Reports on Progress toward Achieving the MDGs, which involves a close collaboration of the UN with the national institutions, led by the National Strategy for Social and Economic Development (NSSED) Department of the Ministry of Finance. Also, in the process leading to the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP; also known in Albania as Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy, GPRS), the Government of Albania reinforced its commitment to strengthening its own capacity to collect and analyse on a regular basis information it needs to inform policy-makers. In its first phase (2001-2006), this monitoring system will include the following data collection instruments:

(i) Population and Housing Census (ii) Living Standards Measurement Surveys every 3 years (iii) Annual panel surveys.

The focus during this first phase of the monitoring system is on a periodic LSMS (in 2002 and 2005), followed by panel surveys on a sub-sample of LSMS households (APS 2003, 2004 and 2006), drawing heavily on the 2001 census information. Here our target is to illustrate the main characteristics of the APS 2004 data with reference to the LSMS. The survey work was undertaken by the Living Standards Unit of INSTAT, with the technical assistance of the World Bank.

Geographic coverage

National

Analysis unit

Households

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

(a) SAMPLE DESIGN

Panel sample, with LSMS 2002 and 2004 The APS 2004 collects information on 1,797 valid observations at household level and 7,476 at individual level. The sample of the second and third waves of the panel (APS) has been selected from the LSMS 2002 in order to be representative of Albanian households and individuals at national level. The LSMS 2002 differs from the APS 2003 and 2004 in that the former is designed to be representative at regional level (Mountain, Central, Coastal and Tirana) as well as for urban and rural domains, while the latter are for last domains only (urban and rural) LSMS 2002 sample design The LSMS is based on a probability sample of housing units (HUs) within the 16 strata of the sampling frame. It is divided in three regions: Coastal, Central, and Mountain Area. In addition, urban areas of Tirana are also considered as a separate region/stratum. The three regions are further stratified in major cities (the most important cities in the region), other urban (other cities in the region), and rural. The city of Tirana and its suburbs have been implicitly stratified to improve the efficiency of the sample design. Each stratum has been divided in Enumeration Area (EA), in accordance with the 2001 Census data, and each Primary Sampling Unit (PSU) selected with probabilities proportional to the number of occupied HUs in the EA. Every EA includes occupied and unoccupied HUs. Occupied rather than total units have been used because of the large number of empty dwellings registered in the Census data. The Housing Unit, defined as the space occupied by one household, is taken as sampling unit because is more permanent and easier to identify compared to the household. 10 EAs for each major city (75 for Tirana) and 65 EAs for each rural region -with the exception of the mountain area which is over-represented (75 EAs)- are selected. 8 households, plus 4 eventual substitutes, have been systematically selected in each EAs. As the LSMS consists of 450 EAs, total sample size is 3,600 households.

(b) STRATIFICATION

The panel component selected from the LSMS is designed to provide a nationally representative sample of households and individuals within Albania. It consists of roughly half of the households in the 2002 LSMS, interviewed both in 2003 and 2004. Contrarily to what done for the LSMS, no over-sampling in the Mountain Area has been performed for the panel survey. The sample is designed to minimize the variability in households' selection probabilities. It ensures national representativeness by matching the sample distribution across strata with the population distribution drawn from 2001 Census data. In Table 3 the ex-ante sampling scheme of the 2003-2004 APS is shown. Compared to the LSMS design, statistical precision has improved. Under equal stratum population variances hypothesis, sample design effects are expected to be around 1.02, compared to the 1.28 of the LSMS sample. Moreover, further precision is obtained by keeping all 450 EAs of LSMS in the panel sample, thus reducing the eventual bias due to clustering because of new design. Finally, the panel survey has a number of peculiar features that should be considered when using the data. The sample is designed to focus on individuals, who have been also traced when moving from the original household to a new one. This possibility represents the only way a household can enter the panel sample if it has not been already interviewed in the wave 1 (or in wave 2 for the APS 2004). If an original survey member (OSM) moves to a new household, his/her old and new household -and their members- are both included in the panel sample. Though a moved OSM will be present in the roster of both sampled households, he/she is a valid member only in the new one. In the old household he/she is considered as "moved away", hence not a valid member. This might generate some confusion. Three modalities exist to classify an individual in the third wave. First, when he/she is an OSM, that is a respondent interviewed both in wave 1 and 2. Second, when he is a re-joiner from 2002, that is an OSM not interviewed in 2003 (i.e. because temporarily absent) who returns in 2004. Third, when he/she is a new member, whenever he/she is a newborn of an original household, a member joined by an OSM or a person who co-resides with an original survey household. So, the APS is an indefinite life panel study, without replacement by drawing new sample units. From wave 2, only individuals aged 15 years and over are considered valid members, hence eligible for the interview. Individuals moved out of Albania are not accounted as valid for this survey year, though they are still eligible for future waves.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Cleaning operations

A first data cleaning took place in Albania and implemented by INSTAT in collaboration with ISER and Government of Albania consultants. The cleaning process has involved following activities: 1. defining data checking routines and writing the syntax code of the cleaning programs; 2. generating lists of outliers and inconsistencies for each module to be checked against paper questionnaires; During the first few days, data cleaning operators have been working on the Export Procedure of the Data Entry Program to check if data export succeeded and to finalize the English version of the dictionaries and error messages. Some changes were made to the Export Procedure due to a problem on the “Agriculturea2” file conversion and to the

Abstract

Over the past decade, Albania has been undergoing a transition toward a market economy and a more open society. It has faced severe internal and external challenges, such as lack of basic infrastructure, rapid collapse of output and inflation rise after the collapse of the communist regime, turmoil during the 1997 pyramid crisis, and social and economic instability because of the 1999 Kosovo crisis. Despite these shocks, Albanian economy has recovered from a very low income level through a sustained growth during the past few years, even though it remains one of the poorest countries in Europe, with GDP per capita at around 1,300$.

Based on the Living Standard Measurement Study (LSMS) 2002 survey data (wave 1, henceforth), for the first time in Albania INSTAT has computed an absolute poverty line on a nationally representative poverty survey at household level. Based on this welfare measure, one quarter (25.4 percent) of the Albanian population, or close to 790,000 individuals, were defined as poor in 2002. The distribution of poverty is also disproportionately rural, as 68 percent of the poor are in rural areas, against 32 percent in urban areas (as compared to a total urban population well over 40 percent). These estimates are quite sensitive to the choice of the poverty line, as there are a large number of households clustered around the poverty line. Income related poverty is compounded by the severe lack of access to basic infrastructure, education and health services, clean water, etc., and the ability of the Government to address these issues is complicated by high levels of internal and external migration that are not well understood.

The availability of a nationally representative survey is crucial as the paucity of household-level information has been a constraining factor in the design, implementation and evaluation of economic and social programs in Albania. Two recent surveys carried out by the Albanian Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) –the 1998 Living Conditions Survey (LCS) and the 2000 Household Budget Survey (HBS)– drew attention, once again, to the need for accurately measuring household welfare according to well-accepted standards, and for monitoring these trends on a regular basis. This target is well-achieved by drawing information over time on a panel component of LSMS 2002 households, namely the Albanian Panel Survey (APS), conducted in 2003 and 2004.

An increasing attention to the policies aimed at achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is paid by the National Parliament of Albania, recently witnessed by the resolution approved in July 2003, where it pushes “[...] the total commitment of both state structures and civil society to achieve the MDGs in Albania by 2015”. The path towards a sustained growth is constantly monitored through the National Reports on Progress toward Achieving the MDGs, which involves a close collaboration of the UN with the national institutions, led by the National Strategy for Social and Economic Development (NSSED) Department of the Ministry of Finance. Also, in the process leading to the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP; also known in Albania as Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy, GPRS), the Government of Albania reinforced its commitment to strengthening its own capacity to collect and analyze on a regular basis information it needs to inform policy-makers.

In its first phase (2001-2006), this monitoring system will include the following data collection instruments: (i) Population and Housing Census; (ii) Living Standards Measurement Surveys every 3 years, and (iii) annual panel surveys. The focus during this first phase of the monitoring system is on a periodic LSMS (in 2002 and 2005), followed by panel surveys on a sub-sample of LSMS households (APS 2003, 2004 and 2006), drawing heavily on the 2001 census information. Here our target is to illustrate the main characteristics of the APS 2004 data with reference to the LSMS.

The survey work was undertaken by the Living Standards Unit of INSTAT, with the technical assistance of the World Bank.

Geographic coverage

National coverage. Domains: Tirana, other urban,rura

Analysis unit

• Households
• Individuals

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

Panel sample, with LSMS 2002 and 2004

The APS 2004 collects information on 1,797 valid observations at household level and 7,476 at individual level. The sample of the second and third waves of the panel (APS) has been selected from the LSMS 2002 in order to be representative of Albanian households and individuals at national level. The LSMS 2002 differs from the APS 2003 and 2004 in that the former is designed to be representative at regional level (Mountain, Central, Coastal and Tirana) as well as for urban and rural domains, while the latter are for last domains only (urban and rural)

LSMS 2002 sample design

The LSMS is based on a probability sample of housing units (HUs) within the 16 strata of the sampling frame. It is divided in three regions: Coastal, Central, and Mountain Area. In addition, urban areas of Tirana are also considered as a separate region/stratum. The three regions are further stratified in major cities (the most important cities in the region), other urban (other cities in the region), and rural. The city of Tirana and its suburbs have been implicitly stratified to improve the efficiency of the sample design. Each stratum has been divided in Enumeration Area (EA), in accordance with the 2001 Census data, and each Primary Sampling Unit (PSU) selected with probabilities proportional to the number of occupied HUs in the EA. Every EA includes occupied and unoccupied HUs. Occupied rather than total units have been used because of the large amount of empty dwellings registered in the Census data.

The Housing Unit, defined as the space occupied by one household, is taken as sampling unit because is more permanent and easy to identify compared to the household. 10 EAs for each major city (75 for Tirana) and 65 EAs for each rural region -with the exception of the mountain area which is over-represented (75 EAs)- are selected. 8 households, plus 4 eventual substitutes, have been systematically selected in each EAs. As the LSMS consists of 450 EAs, total sample size is 3,600 households.

The sample is not self-weighted, hence to obtain correct estimates data need to be weighted. The weights, at household level, are included in the dataset ("weights" file). When working at individual level, household weights must be multiplied by household size.

APS 2003-2004 sample design

The panel component selected from the LSMS is designed to provide a nationally representative sample of households and individuals within Albania. It consists of roughly half of the households in the 2002 LSMS, interviewed both in 2003 and 2004. Contrarily to what done for the LSMS, no over-sampling in the Mountain Area has been performed for the panel survey.

The sample is designed to minimize the variability in households' selection probabilities. It insures national representativeness by matching the sample distribution across strata with the population distribution drawn from 2001 Census data. In Table 3 the ex-ante sampling scheme of the 2003-2004 APS is shown.

Compared to the LSMS design, statistical precision has improved. Under equal stratum population variances hypothesis, sample design effects are expected to be around 1.02, compared to the 1.28 of the LSMS sample. Moreover, further precision is obtained by keeping all 450 EAs of LSMS in the panel sample, thus reducing the eventual bias due to clustering because of new design.

Finally, the panel survey has a number of peculiar features that should be considered when using the data. The sample is designed to focus on individuals, who have been also traced when moving from the original household to a new one. This possibility represents the only way a household can enter the panel sample if it has not been already interviewed in the wave 1 (or in wave 2 for the APS 2004). If an original survey member (OSM) moves to a new household, his/her old and new household -and their members- are both included in the panel sample. Though a moved OSM will be present in the roster of both sampled households, he/she is a valid member only in the new one. In the old household he/she is taken into account as "moved away", hence not a valid member. This might generate some confusion.

Three modalities exist to classify an individual in the third wave. First, when he/she is an OSM, that is a respondent interviewed both in wave 1 and 2. Second, when he is a rejoiner from 2002, that is an OSM not interviewed in 2003 (i.e. because temporarily absent) who returns in 2004. Third, when he/she is a new member, whenever he/she is a newborn of an original household, a member joined by an OSM or a person who co-resides with an original survey household. So the APS is an indefinite life panel study, without replacement by drawing new sample units.

From wave 2, only individuals aged 15 years and over are considered valid members, hence eligible for the interview. Individuals moved out of Albania are not accounted as valid for this survey year, though they are still eligible for future waves.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

A single questionnaire on households has been used to collect information in the APS 2004. Contrary to the LSMS 2002 survey (see Basic Information Document, 2003), both in 2003 and 2004 the Diary for Household Consumption (the “booklet”), the Community questionnaire and the Price questionnaire were not repeated. The target is to collect a similar set of information (only data comparable across time is

Albania is a country. The capital city is Tirana, located in the Southern Europe region of Europe. It has a land area of 27,400 km², a population of 2,745,972 people and uses the currency Albanian lek. The Prime Minister is Edi Rama.