In this paper, we investigate the impact of institutional factors on regional poverty in Kenya
using household survey and district level secondary data. The analysis focuses on the FGT
and consumption based measures of poverty. Both descriptive and econometric methods are
employed. These results suggest that education attainment, assets and family composition are
important correlates of poverty. We also find that except for parliamentary representation,
institutional factors are important determinants of poverty when welfare is measure through
consumption expenditure, but the results are not robust when welfare is measured through the
FGT measures, confirming that consumption functions may be a better approach to measure
welfare than poverty functions. The results call for policies that target poor households and
regions less endowed with institutions in order to reduce regional disparities in household
poverty.