IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/agrebk/qt7p7336h5.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

SMS Surveys of Selected Expenditures

Author

Listed:
  • Lang, Megan
  • Ligon, Ethan

Abstract

High-frequency measures of economic well-being can allow policymakers and researchers to understand and quickly respond to dynamic problems, but collecting such data is expensive. Can short message service (SMS) surveys enable researchers and policymakers to measure household welfare and firm performance at a high frequency in low-income countries? We detail the implementation of two SMS surveys and evaluate their efficacy for gathering high-frequency data. One measures consumption expenditures in Rwanda and the other measures microenterprise revenues in Uganda. We successfully calculate a measure of household welfare for households that respond to the SMS survey in Rwanda and track changes in revenues over time for microenterprises in Uganda. Our SMS surveys are substantially less costly than equivalent in-person surveys; however, nonresponse is a significant problem. We propose combining SMS surveys with in-person data collection to compute weights that correct for nonresponse bias, then evaluate the performance of our method using the revenues data from Uganda.

Suggested Citation

  • Lang, Megan & Ligon, Ethan, 2022. "SMS Surveys of Selected Expenditures," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt7p7336h5, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:agrebk:qt7p7336h5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/7p7336h5.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Angus Deaton, 2005. "Measuring Poverty in a Growing World (or Measuring Growth in a Poor World)," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(1), pages 1-19, February.
    2. Jelke Bethlehem, 2010. "Selection Bias in Web Surveys," International Statistical Review, International Statistical Institute, vol. 78(2), pages 161-188, August.
    3. Shaohua Chen & Martin Ravallion, 2010. "The Developing World is Poorer than We Thought, But No Less Successful in the Fight Against Poverty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1577-1625.
    4. David Atkin & Benjamin Faber & Marco Gonzalez-Navarro, 2018. "Retail Globalization and Household Welfare: Evidence from Mexico," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(1), pages 1-73.
    5. Alwyn Young, 2012. "The African Growth Miracle," NBER Working Papers 18490, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Matthias Schonlau & Arthur van Soest & Arie Kapteyn & Mick Couper, 2009. "Selection Bias in Web Surveys and the Use of Propensity Scores," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 37(3), pages 291-318, February.
    7. Alwyn Young, 2012. "The African Growth Miracle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(4), pages 696-739.
    8. Whitehead, John C. & Groothuis, Peter A. & Blomquist, Glenn C., 1993. "Testing for non-response and sample selection bias in contingent valuation : Analysis of a combination phone/mail survey," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 215-220.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Maxim Pinkovskiy & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2015. "Lights, Camera,... Income! Estimating Poverty Using National Accounts, Survey Means and Lights," LIS Working papers 645, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    2. Maxim L. Pinkovskiy & Xavier X. Sala-i-Martin, 2014. "Lights, camera,...income! Estimating poverty using national accounts, survey means, and lights," Staff Reports 669, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    3. Shifa, Muna & Leibbrandt, Murray, 2021. "Spatial Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa," EconStor Preprints 244591, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    4. Maxim Pinkovskiy & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2014. "Africa is on time," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 311-338, September.
    5. José Noguera-Santaella, 2017. "Is Sub-Saharan Africa catching up?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 555-575, March.
    6. David Atkin & Benjamin Faber & Thibault Fally & Marco Gonzalez-Navarro, 2024. "Measuring Welfare and Inequality with Incomplete Price Information," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 139(1), pages 419-475.
    7. Stefanescu, Răzvan & Dumitriu, Ramona, 2015. "Creşterea economică a României între 1980 şi 2013 [The Economic Growth of Romania between 1980 and 2013]," MPRA Paper 61592, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. De Magalhães, Leandro & Santaeulàlia-Llopis, Raül, 2018. "The consumption, income, and wealth of the poorest: An empirical analysis of economic inequality in rural and urban Sub-Saharan Africa for macroeconomists," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 350-371.
    9. Kenneth Harttgen & Stephan Klasen & Sebastian Vollmer, 2013. "An African Growth Miracle? Or: What do Asset Indices Tell Us About Trends in Economic Performance?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59, pages 37-61, October.
    10. Hoang Ha Nguyen Thi & Alfons Weichenrieder, 2023. "Tax Haven Welfare and the Crackdown on Secrecy: Evidence from Night Light Emissions," CESifo Working Paper Series 10721, CESifo.
    11. McLaren, John & Yoo, Myunghwan, 2017. "FDI and inequality in Vietnam: An approach with census data," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 134-147.
    12. Ademola Obafemi YOUNG, 2019. "Why Has Growth Not Trickled Down to the Poor? A Study of Nigeria," Review of European Studies, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 11(1), pages 156-156, December.
    13. Simplice A. Asongu & Jacinta C. Nwachukwu, 2017. "Foreign Aid and Inclusive Development: Updated Evidence from Africa, 2005–2012," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 98(1), pages 282-298, March.
    14. Donaldson, Dave & Atkin, David, 2015. "Who?s Getting Globalized? The Size and Implications of Intra-national Trade Costs," CEPR Discussion Papers 10759, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Asongu, Simplice & Nwachukwu, Jacinta, 2016. "Reconciliation of the Washington Consensus with the Beijing Model in Africa," MPRA Paper 73685, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Emiel L. Eijdenberg & Kathrin Borner, 2017. "The Performance Of Subsistence Entrepreneurs In Tanzania’S Informal Economy," Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship (JDE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 22(01), pages 1-22, March.
    17. Oasis Kodila-Tedika & Simplice A. Asongu & Julio Mukendi Kayembe, 2016. "Middle Class in Africa: Determinants and Consequences," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(4), pages 527-549, October.
    18. Asongu, Simplice & Amavilah, Voxi & Andrés, Antonio R., 2014. "Economic Implications of Business Dynamics for KE-Associated Economic Growth and Inclusive Development in African Countries," MPRA Paper 63793, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Simplice A. Asongu & Jacinta C. Nwachukwu, 2017. "Recent finance advances in information technology for inclusive development: a survey," Research Africa Network Working Papers 17/009, Research Africa Network (RAN).
    20. Jerven, Morten, 2016. "Discrepancies: Why Do GDP Growth Rates Differ?," Review of Agrarian Studies, Foundation for Agrarian Studies, vol. 6(1), July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdl:agrebk:qt7p7336h5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dabrkus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.