IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/qmce9_v1.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Missing the Poor, Big Time: A Critical Assessment of the Consumer Pyramids Household Survey

Author

Listed:
  • Somanchi, Anmol

    (IDinsight)

Abstract

India’s statistical system is in bad shape with a near absence of regular publicly funded household surveys in recent years. All eyes have now turned to the Consumer Pyramids Household Survey (CPHS), a panel survey of over 170,000 households, privately executed by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) since 2014. Given its breadth and high frequency, CPHS has become a widely referenced barometer of the Indan economy. Research papers using CPHS have also mushroomed. However, there has been little validation of the nature and quality of CPHS data. Most crucially, is it true that CPHS is an “all-India representative survey” as claimed by CMIE and echoed by multiple articles in prestigious journals? Comparing CPHS with various national surveys on a set of key demographic and economic indicators, this paper argues that, far from being nationally representative, CPHS under-represents women and young children, over-represents well-educated households and under-represents the poor. A possible source for these biases (among others) is the strange, unorthodox sampling design adopted by CMIE, which differs from standard sampling approaches on various counts. Further, the bias in the CPHS sample appears to be growing in recent years, posing a serious challenge when using the data to study trends over time

Suggested Citation

  • Somanchi, Anmol, 2021. "Missing the Poor, Big Time: A Critical Assessment of the Consumer Pyramids Household Survey," SocArXiv qmce9_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:qmce9_v1
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/qmce9_v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/61140db6e790da00094da172/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/qmce9_v1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chao, Li-Wei & Szrek, Helena & Peltzer, Karl & Ramlagan, Shandir & Fleming, Peter & Leite, Rui & Magerman, Jesswill & Ngwenya, Godfrey B. & Sousa Pereira, Nuno & Behrman, Jere, 2012. "A comparison of EPI sampling, probability sampling, and compact segment sampling methods for micro and small enterprises," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(1), pages 94-107.
    2. Arpit Gupta & Anup Malani & Bartek Woda, 2021. "Explaining the Income and Consumption Effects of COVID in India," NBER Working Papers 28935, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Gabriel Chodorow-Reich & Gita Gopinath & Prachi Mishra & Abhinav Narayanan, 2020. "Cash and the Economy: Evidence from India’s Demonetization," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(1), pages 57-103.
    4. Amartya Lahiri, 2020. "The Great Indian Demonetization," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(1), pages 55-74, Winter.
    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. Somanchi, Anmol, 2021. "Missing the Poor, Big Time: A Critical Assessment of the Consumer Pyramids Household Survey," SocArXiv qmce9, Center for Open Science.
    2. Lucas A. Mariani & Jose Renato Haas Ornelas & Bernardo Ricca, 2023. "Banks’ Physical Footprint and Financial Technology Adoption," Working Papers Series 576, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    3. Bajaj, Ayushi & Damodaran, Nikhil, 2022. "Consumer payment choice and the heterogeneous impact of India’s demonetization," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    4. Mariani, Lucas A. & Haas Ornelas, José Renato & Ricca, Bernardo, 2023. "Banks’ Physical Footprint and Financial Technology Adoption," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 12812, Inter-American Development Bank.
    5. Dev, Pritha & Unni, Jeemol, 2024. "Demonetisation and labour force participation in India: The impact of governance and political alignment," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    6. Costa, Helia & Pisu, Mauro & Shreeti, Vatsala, 2022. "Short Term Cost of Cash and Mobile Financial Services: Evidence from a natural experiment in India," TSE Working Papers 22-1351, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    7. Alvarez, Fernando & Argente, David & Jimenez, Rafael & Lippi, Francesco, 2022. "Cash: A Blessing or a curse?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 85-128.
    8. Garín, Julio & Lastrapes, William D. & Lester, Robert, 2021. "On the welfare effects of phasing out paper currency," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    9. Ayushi Bajaj & Nikhil Damodaran, 2020. "Consumer Payment Choice and the Heterogeneous Impact of India’s Demonetization," Monash Economics Working Papers 07-20, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    10. Ahsan, Md Nazmul & Thakur, Sounak, 2024. "The great Indian demonetization and gender gap in health outcomes: Evidence from two Indian states," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    11. Arpit Gupta & Anup Malani & Bartosz Woda, 2021. "Inequality in India Declined During COVID," NBER Working Papers 29597, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Das, Satadru & Gadenne, Lucie & Nandi, Tushar & Warwick, Ross, 2023. "Does going cashless make you tax-rich? Evidence from India’s demonetization experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    13. Nidhi Aggarwal & Sudha Narayanan, 2023. "The impact of India's demonetization on domestic agricultural trade," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(1), pages 316-340, January.
    14. Khanna, Gaurav & Mukherjee, Priya, 2023. "Political accountability for populist policies: Lessons from the world’s largest democracy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    15. Fouillet, Cyril & Guérin, Isabelle & Servet, Jean-Michel, 2021. "Demonetization and digitalization: The Indian government's hidden agenda," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(2).
    16. Chanda, Areendam & Cook, C. Justin, 2022. "Was India’s demonetization redistributive? Insights from satellites and surveys," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    17. Ajit Dayanandan & Jai Chander & N. R. V. V. M. K. Rajendra Kumar, 2023. "Size and liquidity of government securities in India," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 71-90, June.
    18. Hilaire, Alvin & Mahabir, Reshma, 2020. "The great exchange: Rapid demonetization in Trinidad and Tobago," Latin American Journal of Central Banking (previously Monetaria), Elsevier, vol. 1(1).
    19. Baruah, Prerona, 2022. "Investigating Commodity Price Relations across Wholesale Markets: The Case of Paddy in Chhattisgarh, India," Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, vol. 0(Number 01), March.
    20. Tatjana Dahlhaus & Angelika Welte, 2024. "Payment habits during Covid-19: Evidence from high-frequency transaction data," IFC Bulletins chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Granular data: new horizons and challenges, volume 61, Bank for International Settlements.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:osf:socarx:qmce9_v1. 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: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    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.