Description:
Consumption expenditure has long been
the preferred measure of household living standards.
However, accurate measurement is a challenge and household
expenditure surveys vary widely across many dimensions,
including the level of reporting, the length of the
reference period, and the degree of commodity detail. These
variations occur both across countries and also over time
within countries. There is little current understanding of
the implications of such changes for spatially and
temporally consistent measurement of household consumption
and poverty. A field experiment in Tanzania tests eight
alternative methods to measure household consumption on a
sample of 4,000 households. There are significant
differences between consumption reported by the benchmark
personal diary and other diary and recall formats.
Under-reporting is particularly relevant in illiterate
households and for urban respondents completing household
diaries; recall modules measure lower consumption than a
personal diary, with larger gaps among poorer households and
households with more adult members. Variations in reporting
accuracy by household characteristics are also discussed and
differences in measured poverty as a result of survey design
are explored. The study concludes with recommendations for
methods of survey based consumption measurement in
low-income countries.