Longitudinal Studies at CMF

Principal Researchers: Prof. Mark Rosenzweig (Yale)
Partner Organization: Economic Growth Center at Yale University, Department of Economics

Two large-scale panel surveys have been initiated by the Economic Growth Center (EGC) in India and Ghana to gather data that will be used to study the pathways through which social and political institutions influence patterns of economic development, while taking into account the possibility that the process of economic development itself may shape the evolution of these institutions.  In addition, the data will be used to examine the dynamic relationships between economic change and broader measures of human well-being.

The projects have three components:  a survey of households and their enterprises; an inventory of the village/neighborhood infrastructure; and a complete listing of the village/neighborhood population and their socioeconomic characteristics.  The EGC is collaborating with the Center for Micro Finance (CMF) at the Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR) in Chennai on the India surveys and with the Ghana Statistical Service and the University of Ghana on the Ghanaian surveys.

It is expected that the panel surveys will continue for at least twelve years, and that there will be new survey rounds at least every three years. All individuals in the baseline survey will be included in future rounds, regardless of where they may currently reside.

The India survey includes all persons in a random sample of 10,000 households located in 200 rural villages and 200 sampling units in non-rural areas of Tamil Nadu state in India. There are three main components to the survey: a questionnaire administered to all households in each of the 200 villages (census households); a set of questionnaires based on in-house interviews with the 10,000 sampled households; and village/community questionnaires. 

Three main features of the design are: A) All transactions by the sampled households in rural areas will be linked with the census households and with immediate relatives of the households heads not residing in the villages to characterize more precisely social networks and interlinking of contracts; B) All individuals are administered internationally standardized cognition tests; and C) All individuals in the sampled households will be followed, wherever they reside, in order to measure social and spatial mobility. It is expected that the survey will be repeated, following all individuals, at intervals of three years in coordination with the other ongoing and planned EGC panel surveys.

CMF Research Associate: Amy Jensen Mowl (Programme Head, Longitudinal Studies)
Field Director: Jawahar.J