Decomposing Response Errors in Food Consumption Measurement : Implications for Survey Design from a Survey Experiment in Tanzania
There is wide variation in how consumption is measured in household surveys both across countries and over time. This variation may confound welfare comparisons in part because these alternative survey designs produce consumption estimates that are...
Main Authors: | , , , |
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Language: | English en_US |
Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/04/26247062/decomposing-response-errors-food-consumption-measurement-implications-survey-design-survey-experiment-tanzania http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24220 |
Summary: | There is wide variation in how
consumption is measured in household surveys both across
countries and over time. This variation may confound welfare
comparisons in part because these alternative survey designs
produce consumption estimates that are differentially
influenced by contrasting types of survey response error.
Although previous studies have documented the extent of net
error in alternative survey designs, little is known about
the relative influence of the different response errors that
underpin a survey estimate. This study leverages a recent
randomized food consumption survey experiment in Tanzania to
shed light on the relative influence of these various error
types. The observed deviation of measured household
consumption from a benchmark is decomposed into
item-specific consumption incidence and consumption value so
as to investigate effects related to (a) the omission of any
consumption and then (b) the error in value reporting
conditional on positive consumption. The results show that
various survey designs exhibit widely differing error
decompositions, and hence a simple summary comparison of the
total recorded consumption across surveys will obscure
specific error patterns and inhibit the lessons for improved
consumption survey design. In light of these findings, the
relative performance of common survey designs is discussed,
and design lessons are drawn to enhance the accuracy of
item-specific consumption reporting and, consequently, the
measures of total household food consumption. |
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