Measuring consumption over the phone: Evidence from a survey experiment in urban Ethiopia

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Abate, Gashaw T.; de Brauw, Alan; Hirvonen, Kalle; Wolle, Abdulazize
• 署名单位: CGIAR; International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI); State University of New York (SUNY) System; University at Albany, SUNY
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2022.103026
• 发表日期: 2023
• 关键词: Survey Experiment; Phone survey; Survey fatigue; Food consumption; Household surveys

摘要

The paucity of reliable, timely household consumption data in many low- and middle-income countries have made it difficult to assess how global poverty has evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic. Standard poverty measurement requires collecting household consumption data, which is rarely collected by phone. To test the feasibility of collecting consumption data over the phone, we conducted a survey experiment in urban Ethiopia, randomly assigning households to either phone or in-person interviews. In the phone survey, average per capita consumption is 23 percent lower and the estimated poverty headcount is twice as high than in the in-person survey. We observe evidence of survey fatigue occurring early in phone interviews but not in in-person interviews; the bias is correlated with household characteristics. While the phone survey mode provides comparable estimates when measuring diet-based food security, it is not amenable to measuring consumption using the 'best practice' approach originally devised for in-person surveys.