Course:Cons452/LSMS

Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS)

Description

LSMS is a household survey program that is a part of the Survey Unit of the World Bank and was established in 1980. LSMS works with national statistics offices to provide high-quality, multi-topic household surveys. The goal of LSMS is to foster increased use of household data as a basis for policy decision-making. Specifically, the LSMS is working to monitor progress in raising standards of living worldwide, to identify the consequences for households of past and proposed government policies, and to improve communications between survey statisticians, analysts, and those operating in the policy realm.

LSMS has standard surveys which are composed of many modules, but any given country's national statistics office can modify the survey for their own objectives. Thus, you end up with a wide range of slightly different surveys depending on how much each country's statistics office decided to deviate from the original. In general; however, the modules cover topics such as household composition, consumption (food, non-food, durable assets), income, education, health, migration, fertility, anthropometrics, community information (demographics, economy, infrastructure...), and current market pricing in the survey area. Though each survey can be different, the LSMS data catalog does a really good job of providing clear information on each dataset, and allows you to download the questionnaires used (found under the "documentation" tab) to see if the type of data they gathered is what you are looking for. Once you have selected a particular dataset, along the top there are tabs for the study description, the data description, the documentation, accessing the micro-data, and related citations. Under the data description tab, there are handy quick-links along the left hand side bar to navigate to key information within that dataset such as: sampling, data collection, scope, and metadata. In summary, it is important that you research your particular survey of interest to see which modules are included.

Once you know which modules you may be interested in (aside from looking at the questionnaires provided under the Documentation tab) check out the guidebooks which describe exactly how the data was asked/acquired (for example: there is a guidebook on "Trees on Farms: Measuring their Contribution to Household Welfare" and "Food Data Collection in Household Consumption and Expenditure surveys"). These guidebooks contain the exact questionnaires that are provided by LSMS to the national statistics offices. Although a national statistics office for a particular country may have modified the survey, in general (if they have that module) it is likely that this was the questionnaire used. Be sure to see how they asked the questions so that you understand what information is available from the dataset.

As LSMS is done in partnership with national statistics offices, you will find that some of the datasets are only downloadable externally (i.e. you must leave the LSMS site to go to another portal to download the data). As this is another step, be sure to access and get the necessary permissions early in case the external agency requires a separate log-in or permission.

Metadata

Metadata Component	Description
Theme	Education, health, labour and social protection, poverty, demography, housing, expenditure, income, consumption, fertility, land use, literacy, agriculture...
Source	The World Bank
Purpose	To provide quality micro-data so that policy-makers may use it to understand the determinants of observed social and economic outcomes.
Time Frame	1985 to present
File Type	Socioeconomic (survey)
File Format	ASCII, STATA, SPSS, SAS
Structure	One household, village, or individual per row (varies depending on the survey)
Projection and coordinate system	N/A
Extent	Global (each survey organized by country)
Resolution or scale	varies

Common Problems

• You must create a log-in. Be aware that external agencies may require an extra log-in and permissions to be granted. Ensure you leave enough time to download and access the datasets with this in mind.
• Make sure you read the questionnaire and codebook for the section of a dataset that interests you. Without seeing the question, you may inadvertently misunderstand the meaning of the variable(s) you are looking at.

Downloading Instructions

1. Go to the url: https://microdata.worldbank.org/index.php/home This is the LSMS micro-data library.
2. Type in the search bar a query for a dataset of interest, e.g. project country
3. You may click on the filters once in the database to further search for specific datasets, or browse.
4. Again, be sure to note that many datasets are externally downloadable, and you will have to navigate off the LSMS page to a different agency's website.

Restrictions on Use

Data disseminated by the World Bank under its Open Data policy are provided under the Open Data terms of use. These terms of use apply to data provided through their catalog. For these reasons, the Microdata Library disseminates data under some restrictions, the terms of which vary by source, as well as according to the individual characteristics of each microdata set. Make sure you check and understand your particular dataset's restrictions before you begin.