Data Access Tools and Comparative Welfare Analysis using New Harmonized Microdata on Income and Consumption in Mali and Lao PDR

There is ever increasing demand for micro-data of high quality on incomes and consumption and on the broader livelihoods of individuals and families in all countries, but especially in poor countries. Such data sources are essential to monitor social welfare, track trends, identify vulnerable groups, gauge the impact of interventions. Such monitoring is crystallised in the UN' Sustainable Development Goals. Unfortunately, low income countries often face difficulties in building a reliable knowledge base and micro-data infrastructure. Against this backdrop, the present project proposes to gather an international and interdisciplinary team of researchers, data experts, data scientists, and IT specialists from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) and the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) to work with statistical offices in Mali and Laos (with whom LIS has had previous collaboration) with the objective to build capacity and improve data collection and comparability in Mali and Laos, as well as conduct research on social welfare, inequality, and poverty in these two countries in a (regional) comparative perspective. The project will involve the National Statistical Offices of Mali and Lao PDR to help improve the collection and treatment of household-level data on income and consumption and to incorporate harmonized data for these two countries in the LIS infrastructure. This project is part of a strategic development of LIS to expand coverage of low and middle income countries. This move is also challenging. Historically, LIS has been primarily harmonizing data on incomes across countries. However, in poorer countries (where incomes can be highly variable), individual and household welfare is most commonly assessed on the basis of consumption expenditures. The projected collaboration with Mali and Laos will therefore also involved knowledge transfer into Luxembourg in what will lead to in-depth case studies helping the broader development of harmonisation of consumption data. Beyond capacity building, research will build upon modern distribution analysis methods (such as distribution regression methods or influence function analysis) alongside traditional inequality and poverty analysis. As a distinctive feature, the research will exploit both income and expenditure data ? focusing on their joint distribution. This will involve the development of dedicated extensions of distributive analysis methods. We will study recent trends in the evolution of welfare in the two countries, but will exploit the availability in LIS of harmonized data for a set of other low or middle income countries in South East Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa to conduct comparative analysis. Comparative analysis is essential to understand commonalities and specificities in different countries and assess the impacts of policy interventions or idiosyncratic (country-specific) shocks. The seedling stage will be exploited to discuss with local partners and identify potential major shocks or national policy interventions that will deserve specific examination. In sum, the ultimate goal of the project is to enhance the capacity of the Malian and Laotian statistical offices teams in: i) producing robust poverty and inequality indicators, based on sound data that incorporate both the income and the consumption perspective, ii) carrying out analysis on income and consumption distributions and their inter-relation, and iii) ensuring that the data management infrastructure plan copes-up with the latest relevant technology. At the same time, the project will catalyse LIS' efforts in expanding its coverage to low-income countries, hence fostering the possibilities of carrying out high-quality research that puts high-, middle- and low-income countries in comparative perspective.