Effects of Data Collection Methods on Estimated Household Consumption and Survey Costs : Evidence from an Experiment in the Marshall Islands
In the Pacific, multitopic household surveys have historically gathered expenditure data using open form diaries completed on paper. This methodology is costly to governments, is burdensome for respondents, and takes substantial time to process the...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099834004282216747/IDU014657f420d00e042a30a68903563423f5b37 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37356 |
| Summary: | In the Pacific, multitopic household
surveys have historically gathered expenditure data using
open form diaries completed on paper. This methodology is
costly to governments, is burdensome for respondents, and
takes substantial time to process the results. Noncompliance
and partial compliance in diary keeping can artificially
inflate poverty measures, biasing economic statistics. This
paper reports findings from an experiment in the Marshall
Islands comparing the cost and accuracy of several
collection methodologies. Variable costs for the status quo
diary survey design are between 2.8 and 4.4 times more
expensive than a single-visit seven-day recall survey, with
the tablet-based diary being even more costly. The highly
monitored diaries give similar results to recall but at much
greater cost; the status quo yields data of worse quality as
effective completion rates with low monitored diaries are
only two-thirds the completion rates of recall-based
options. Finally, the paper discusses the implementation
challenges associated with the different methods in a
capacity-constrained environment. |
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