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...

Respondent biases introduce measurement error into household statistics. There are two components of respondent bias in household surveys: asymmetric information between proxy respondent and the individual on whom they report and aggregation bias when a proxy respondent reports on a...

This paper uses data from eight different consumption questionnaires randomly assigned to 4,000 households in Tanzania to obtain evidence on the nature of measurement errors in estimates of household consumption. While there are no validation data, the design of one questionnaire and the...