povcalnet_cl does not return full results when using different poverty lines about povcalnetr

[morkor]

[using a fully updated R version 3.6.1 (2019-07-05) on Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS]

[morkor]

I think those missing are all Urban based surveys

[tonyfujs]

@morkor Can you send me a reproducible script so I can figure out what is happening? Thanks!

[morkor]

here it is:
i <- "ARG"
PLs <- c(3.149,2.066,2.704,1.155,1.552,1.737,1.500,2.132,1.848,1.500,1.430,1.375,2.104,2.152,2.095,2.203,1.768,1.669,1.519,1.841,1.918,1.698,1.570,1.424,1.243,1.092)
TargetYears <- c(1980,1986,1987,1991,1992,1993,1994,1995,1996,1997,1998,1999,2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005,2006,2007,2008,2009,2010,2011,2012,2013)
t1 <- povcalnetR::povcalnet_cl(rep(i,length(TargetYears)),PLs,TargetYears) # this is empty although povcanet has data on this country:
t2 <- povcalnetR::povcalnet(i)
sort(unique(t2$year)[which(!(unique(t2$year) %in% unique(t1$year)))])

i <- "BOL"
PLs <- c(1.038,1.145,1.160,1.171,1.173,1.138,1.110,1.130,1.156,1.155,1.182,1.206,1.212,1.259,1.263,1.260,1.261,1.284,1.268,1.266)
TargetYears <- c(1990,1992,1997,1999,2000,2001,2002,2004,2005,2006,2007,2008,2009,2011,2012,2013,2014,2015,2016,2017)
t1 <- povcalnetR::povcalnet_cl(rep(i,length(TargetYears)),PLs,TargetYears) # note here that 1992 is missing from the tibble compared to:
t2 <- povcalnetR::povcalnet(i)
sort(unique(t2$year)[which(!(unique(t2$year) %in% unique(t1$year)))])

i <- "COL"
PLs <- c(3.008,2.036,1.868,1.81,1.804,1.587,1.616,1.62,1.622,1.66,1.67,1.672,1.705,1.801,1.834,1.828,1.788,1.824,1.815,1.81,1.806,1.799,1.827)
TargetYears <- c(1980,1988,1989,1991,1992,1996,1999,2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005,2008,2009,2010,2011,2012,2013,2014,2015,2016,2017)
t1 <- povcalnetR::povcalnet_cl(rep(i,length(TargetYears)),PLs,TargetYears) # note here that 1980;1988;1989;1991 are missing from the tibble compared to:
t2 <- povcalnetR::povcalnet(i)
sort(unique(t2$year)[which(!(unique(t2$year) %in% unique(t1$year)))])

... similarly for the others and lastly Uruguay:

i <- "URY"
PLs <- c(3.282,2.418,2.839,2.457,2.363,2.225,1.538,1.434,1.571,2.658,2.567,2.419,2.089,2.903,2.798,2.828,2.902,2.885,2.938,2.913,2.927,2.97,2.919)
TargetYears <- c(1980,1988,1989,1991,1992,1996,1999,2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005,2008,2009,2010,2011,2012,2013,2014,2015,2016,2017)
t1 <- povcalnetR::povcalnet_cl(rep(i,length(TargetYears)),PLs,TargetYears) # note here that 1992;1995;1996;1997;1998;2000;2001;2002;2003;2004;2005 are missing from the tibble compared to:
t2 <- povcalnetR::povcalnet(i, 1.9,TargetYears)
sort(unique(t2$year)[which(!(unique(t2$year) %in% unique(t1$year)))])

[tonyfujs]

Thanks @morkor
So the issue comes from the different type of coverages. ARG is the easiest example to showcase this because it only has urban coverage. By default, the PovcalNet API only returns national coverage if coverage is not explicitly specified: This is why you are not getting any data when querying ARG.

You can get what you want by passing the coverage parameter:
`i <- "FRA"
coverage <- "urban"
PLs <- c(3.149,2.066,2.704,1.155,1.552,1.737,1.500,2.132,1.848,1.500,1.430,1.375,2.104,2.152,2.095,2.203,1.768,1.669,1.519,1.841,1.918,1.698,1.570,1.424,1.243,1.092)
TargetYears <- c(1980,1986,1987,1991,1992,1993,1994,1995,1996,1997,1998,1999,2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005,2006,2007,2008,2009,2010,2011,2012,2013)

t1 <- povcalnetR::povcalnet_cl(rep(i,length(TargetYears)),
PLs,
TargetYears,
coverage = rep(coverage, length(TargetYears)))`

I agree that this is a bit confusing... I will close this issue, but open another to improve the povcalnet_cl() function so it returns a useful message when running into these cases.