Transcript Harmonize or Perish! The Living Standards Measurement Study Gero Carletto Development Research Group WORLD BANK GOALS Jim Yong Kim announces new goals End extreme poverty: the.

Harmonize or Perish!
The Living Standards
Measurement Study
Gero Carletto
Development Research Group
WORLD BANK GOALS
Jim Yong Kim announces new goals
End extreme poverty: the percentage of people living with
less than US$ 1.25 a day to fall to 3 percent by 2030
Promote shared prosperity: foster income growth of the
bottom 40 percent of the population in every country
Recognition of large data gap
75 percent of countries with “updated” household survey
WB GOALS,
IMPLICATIONS
Some key current data gaps:
Household income or
consumption distribution data is
up-to-date in about 50% of
developing countries
The stated goal: halve the poverty
data gaps in developing countries
by 2017, ensuring up-to-date data
for 75% of all countries
(containing virtually all the poor)
WB GOALS & LSMS
More data, but just as important …
quality data
policy-relevant data
comparable data
cross-country and over time
Not only averages, but distributions (shared prosperity)
Comparability of existing consumption data …
P
e
r
c
e
n
t
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
70.0
41.0
24.0
Less than one week
100
P
e
r
c
e
n
t
One week
100.0
23.0
5.0
7.0
Two weeks
One month
96.0
Greater than one
month
Less than or equal to
two weeks
86.0
85.0
In-kind receipts of food
All three sources
80
60
40
20
0
Food purchases
Home-produced food consumed
Instrument design
& implications
for poverty
Mean
consumption
per cap (Tsh)
520,850
Poverty
headcount
($1.25/day)
54.9
HH diary infrequent
425,298
55.6
Personal diary
510,616
47.5
Type of consumption
module in questionnaire
Long 7 day recall
Note: Test compared 8 different instruments, varying recall period and method
Beegle, Kathleen, Joachim De Weerdt, Jed Friedman, and John Gibson. 2012. “Methods of Household Consumption
Measurement through Surveys: Experimental Results from Tanzania.” J of Development Economics 98: 3-18
Heterogeneity in Surveys
• Initial purpose of the survey drives the way
survey is designed and implemented
– Different agenda  Different instrument
• An increasingly crowded field…
Instrument
Sponsor
Censuses
UNFPA
Income Expenditure /Budget Surveys (IES/HBS)
Central Banks, IMF, NSOs
Labor Force Surveys (LFS)
ILO
Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)
USAID
Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS)
UNICEF
Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaires (CWIQ)
UNDP, DfID
WB Africa Reg.
Welfare Monitoring Survey (WMS)
Stat Norway
Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (SILC)
Eurostat
Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability
Analysis 9CFSVA)
WFP
Integrated, Multi-Topic Surveys
[Living Standards Measurement
Study (LSMS), Integrated Surveys (IS), Family Life
Surveys (FLS)]
World Bank
RAND
NSOs
The thinking behind the LSMS survey
• The “McNamara Anecdote”
• Need to understand living standards, poverty,
inequality and the correlates and determinants of
these- not just monitor.
• Unit of analysis is the household, as both a
consuming and producing unit
• One survey collecting data on a range of topics is a
more powerful tool for policy formulation than a
series of single purpose surveys: the sum is greater
than the parts
– Farmers are diversified
– Poverty and FS are multidimensional
The thinking behind the LSMS survey (cont’d)
• Demand driven and country-owned
• Priority often given to meeting the policy needs of
each country, but with an eye to x-country
comparability and accepted standards
• Implications
– no standard set of LSMS questionnaires: content, length
and complexity varies by country
– Questionnaire development- lengthy process linking data
users, stakeholders and data producers
– Capacity building, sustainability
A “typical” LSMS
• Consumption-based welfare measure
– Multi-dimensional poverty
• Multiple instruments
– HH, Agriculture, Community, Price, Facilities
• Strict data quality control
–
–
–
–
“Intelligent” data entry, CAPI
Small sample
Pre-coded, closed-ended questions
Training, supervision
• Documentation and Dissemination
– Basic Information Document
– Consumption aggregate .do files
– Publicly available microdata
The LSMS today
• Goal: ensure that the LSMS meets new demands for
data and remains at the forefront of survey
methodology
• New demand -- new topics
• Old topics with new focus (agriculture)
• New technologies
• Increased standardization
• Four areas of focus
–
–
–
–
Data collection
Methodological Work
Tools, Resources for researchers/survey practitioners
Training and Dissemination
LSMS
OUTREACH
Training
(LSMS course,
e-learning)
Survey Clinics
Sourcebooks
Technical
Assistance
Tools
(CLSP, ADePT)
DATA
LSMS-ISA
Tanzania
Uganda
Ethiopia
Malawi
Nigeria
Niger
Mali
Burkina Faso
Non-LSMS-ISA
Serbia
Haiti
Tajikistan …
RESEARCH
SURVEY METHODS
AG
POVERTY/FS
Land
SHWALITA
Soil
Inputs
Skills
Crops
Lvstck
Subj. Pov.
ADVOCACY/DISSEMINATION
OTHER
*Mig
*Labor
*Income
*Credit
ANALYSIS
*Gender
*AgNut
*Facts+Myths
*Migration
*Subsidies
*Tracking
poverty
Lack of standards result in poor
comparability!
• Take Food Consumption …
– Diary vs. recall
– Household vs. individual
– Reference period
– Nomenclature (COICOP)
– Bulk purchases
– Non-standard units of measure
– Food consumed away from home (FCAH)
– Valuation of consumed own-production
Take diary vs. recall …
• Diary often considered ….
– Unfeasible (low literacy rate)
– Too onerous for respondents
– Too costly
– Often, diary converts into short (2-3 day) recall
… but no metadata!
• Recall considered imprecise (telescoping,
recall bias)
• 7-day recall most frequent. Most feasible?
Can we improve on 7-day recall?
• Creating a continuum between diary and
recall: “SHWALITA, the sequel”
• Bounding reference period
• Assisting households to recall
• Accounting for bulk purchases (annualization)
Can we improve on 7-day recall?
• Creating a continuum between diary and
recall: “SHWALITA, the sequel”
• Bounding reference period
• Assisting households to recall
• Accounting for bulk purchases (annualization)
• Food Consumed Away from Home
– Increasing share of total food consumption
Can we improve on 7-day recall?
• Creating a continuum between diary and
recall: “SHWALITA, the sequel”
• Bounding reference period
• Assisting households to recall
• Accounting for bulk purchases (annualization)
• Food Consumed Away from Home
– Increasing share of total food consumption
• Non-standard Units of Measure (CAPI)
Non-Standard Units
20
What about non-food?
• Lack of consistency even in number of
components
– Imputed rents
– User value of durables
– Health expenditures
– List of 12-month items
What about income?
“The practical and conceptual difficulties of
collecting good income data are severe
enough to raise doubts about the value of
trying”
A. Deaton (1997), p. 30
Income and Consumption
• Income (Y) information important for other uses
(besides poverty & inequality)
– Livelihood strategies (income shares)
– Productivity/efficiency analysis
– Net buyer/net sellers, impact of high food prices
• Consumption (C) preferred welfare measure in
developing countries
– More stable (short-term fluctuations)
– Income harder to measure (self-employment)
– Less incentive to mis-report
• Y relatively neglected
• Some components more troubling than others!
A closer look at Y components
Wage earners
A closer look at Y components (cont’d)
Farm households
Measuring crop production
Measuring crop production
• Farmers/HHs don’t keep records
• Crops often harvested in small quantities over
several months
• Mostly consumed
• Recall widely used but does not always work
• Measured in non-standard units of varying size
• Different units along the value chain, different
states
• Standards do not exist or not feasible
– Need validation
#whatwillittake … to harmonize?
• Friction bet/w country ownership/temporal
comparability and x-country harmonization?
• Not a DHS but more standardization is possible
• Start with inventory of surveys (Olivier)
• Mapping and influencing “pipeline”
• Agreement on current standards
– Consumption vs. Income
– Food consumption
•
•
•
•
Method
Reference period
Disaggregation
Nomenclature (COICOP)
– Non-food expenditure components
– Imputations
#whatwillittake … to harmonize?
• Enhanced coordination
– Some “unflattering” examples …
– Clearly defined mandates and responsibilities
– Establish forum (IHSN, UNSC,…)
• Methodological research to establish
future, improved standards
“If you want to make enemies,
try to change something”
Woodrow Wilson