Intrahousehold Analysis Using Household Consumption Data: Would the Potential Benefit of Collecting Individual-Level Consumption Data Justify Its Cost?

This paper examines the usefulness and limits of household consumption expenditure data for understanding intrahousehold resource allocation issues. It also examines alternative data collection methods for obtaining household consumption information to be used for addressing such issues. While the high cost involved in the collection of fully individual-level data collection, particularly of food intake data, is generally likely to exceed potential benefit in the context of large-scale and nationally representative household surveys, partially individualized consumption data collection (e. g., education and health), is highly desirable and relatively inexpensive. Furthermore, we explore possible conditions under which collecting individual-level food intake data could be worthwhile. Such conditions are mainly determined in terms of both research foci/policy priorities at hand, and the characteristics of the study areas.