Improved Modelling of Spatial Cost of Living Differences in Developing Countries: A Comparison of Expert Knowledge and Traditional Price Surveys

John Gibson and Trinh Le

Working Papers in Economics from University of Waikato

Abstract: Most developing countries lack spatially disaggregated price data, despite the importance of spatial transactions costs in these settings. We experimented in Vietnam with a new way of obtaining disaggregated price data, using local expert knowledge to derive the mean and variance for prices of 64 items in over 1000 communities. We use these prices to calculate regional cost-of-living indexes. These provide a better approximation to benchmark multilateral price indexes calculated from traditional market price surveys than do two no-price methods, based on using food Engel curves to derive deflators and based on unit values (survey group expenditure over group quantity).

Keywords: expert knowledge; inequality; prices; regional cost-of-living (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 E31 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2018-06-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dev, nep-knm, nep-mac, nep-sea, nep-tra and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wai:econwp:18/08

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