The Insights and Illusions of Consumption Measurements

Erich Battistin (), Michele De Nadai and Nandini Krishnan

No 14730, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: While household well-being derives from long-term average rates of consumption, welfare comparisons typically rely on shorter-duration survey measurements. We develop a new strategy to identify the distribution of these long-term rates by leveraging a large-scale randomization that elicited repeated short-duration measurements from diaries and recall questions. Identification stems from diary-recall differences in reports from the same household, does not require reports to be error-free, and hinges on a research design with broad replicability. Our strategy delivers cost-effective suggestions for designing survey modules that yield the closest measurements of consumption well-being, and offers new insights to interpret and reconcile diary-recall differences in household surveys.

Keywords: Household surveys; Measurement of inequality and poverty; Modes of data collection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C81 D31 D63 E21 I32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP14730 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Working Paper: The Insights and Illusions of Consumption Measurements (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:14730

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP14730

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().