Resource information
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
household. Diverse scales are in evidence, casting
considerable doubt on the meaning of widely-used summary
measures such as subjective poverty rates. Nonetheless,
under the identifying assumptions of the study, only small
biases are induced in the coefficients on widely-used
regressors for subjective poverty and welfare.
