Measuring living standards with proxy variables
Measuring living standards with proxy variables
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DOI：
10.2307/2648118
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发表时间：
2000-05-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.5
通讯作者：
Paredes, E
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Montgomery, MR;Gragnolati, M;Paredes, E
发展中国家的人口调查很少收集家庭收入或消费支出的资料。因此，对生活水平感兴趣的研究人员别无选择，只能依靠简单的替代指标。这些代理的属性还没有被系统地分析。我们问什么样的假设可以使用代理进行测试，并将这些指标与每个成年人的消费支出进行比较，这是我们首选的生活水平衡量标准。我们发现，在许多人口研究中使用的代理人是非常弱的预测每个成年人的消费。然而，基于代理的假设检验可能足够强大，值得考虑。
Very few demographic surveys in developing countries have gathered information on household incomes or consumption expenditures. Researchers interested in living standards therefore have had little alternative but to rely on simple proxy indicators. The properties of these proxies have not been analyzed systematically. We ask what hypotheses can be tested using proxies, and compare these indicators with consumption expenditures per adult, our preferred measure of living standards. We find that the proxies employed in much demographic research are very weak predictors of consumption per adult. Nevertheless, hypothesis tests based on proxies are likely to be powerful enough to warrant consideration.