Micro-Level Estimation of Welfare

The authors construct and derive the properties of estimators of welfare that take advantage of the detailed information about living standards available in small household surveys and the comprehensive coverage of a census or large sample. By combining the strengths of each, the estimators can be used at a remarkably disaggregated level. They have a clear interpretation, are mutually comparable, and can be assessed for reliability using standard statistical theory. Using data from Ecuador, the authors obtain estimates of welfare measures, some of which are quite reliable for populations as small as 15,000 households--a "town." They provide simple illustrations of their use. Such estimates open up the possibility of testing, at a more convincing intra-country level, the many recent models relating welfare distributions to growth and a variety of socioeconomic and political outcomes