Can Subjective Questions on Economic Welfare Be Trusted? Evidence for Three Developing Countries
While self-assessments of welfare have
become popular for measuring poverty and estimating welfare
effects, the methods can be deceptive given systematic
heterogeneity in respondents' scales. Little is known
about this problem. This study uses specially-designed
surveys in three countries, Tajikistan, Guatemala, and
Tanzania, to study scale heterogeneity. Respondents were
asked to score stylized vignettes, as well as their own