Methods of Household Consumption Measurement Through Surveys : Experimental Results from Tanzania

Beegle, Kathleen ; De Weerdt, Joachim ; Friedman, Jed ; Gibson, John

关键词: ABSOLUTE POVERTY;    ABSOLUTE POVERTY LINE;    AGGREGATE MEASURE;    AGGREGATE POVERTY;    ASSESSING WELFARE;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-5501
RP-ID  :  WPS5501

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Consumption expenditure has long beenthe preferred measure of household living standards.However, accurate measurement is a challenge and householdexpenditure surveys vary widely across many dimensions,including the level of reporting, the length of thereference period, and the degree of commodity detail. Thesevariations occur both across countries and also over timewithin countries. There is little current understanding ofthe implications of such changes for spatially andtemporally consistent measurement of household consumptionand poverty. A field experiment in Tanzania tests eightalternative methods to measure household consumption on asample of 4,000 households. There are significantdifferences between consumption reported by the benchmarkpersonal diary and other diary and recall formats.Under-reporting is particularly relevant in illiteratehouseholds and for urban respondents completing householddiaries; recall modules measure lower consumption than apersonal diary, with larger gaps among poorer households andhouseholds with more adult members. Variations in reportingaccuracy by household characteristics are also discussed anddifferences in measured poverty as a result of survey designare explored. The study concludes with recommendations formethods of survey based consumption measurement inlow-income countries.