World Bank Conference - The Pulse of Progress: Harnessing High-Frequency Survey Data for Development Research in the Polycrisis Era

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Overview

The Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS), the World Bank’s flagship household survey program, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) are co-organizing a conference, The Pulse of Progress: Harnessing High-Frequency Survey Data for Development Research in the Polycrisis Era, which will take place on December 17-18, 2024, at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

This two-day conference will celebrate four years of the LSMS conducting longitudinal High-Frequency Phone Surveys (HFPS) in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Initially launched to address data and knowledge gaps related to the COVID-19 pandemic, these surveys have evolved to provide substantive insights on the socioeconomic impacts of large-scale health, economic and environmental shocks that have unfolded over the last 4+ years.]

They have also had a transformative impact on national statistical systems, complementing existing in-person surveys with high-frequency data collection on policy-relevant topics. To date, more than 100 survey rounds and 200,000 interviews have been completed across the six LSMS—supported countries alone.

The papers that were presented during The Pulse of Progress: Harnessing High-Frequency Survey Data for Development Research in the Polycrisis Era conference were organized in six thematic areas.

Below, you will find the presentations and some of the papers in PDF. And here, the conference’s program for both days.  

1. Human Capital and Wellbeing

• Stress under Shocks: Food Insecurity, Weather Shocks, and Mental Health in Malawi. Wei Li - Texas A&M University. Presentation and Paper.
• The Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on Student Learning Outcomes and Human Capital Development in Uganda. Phionah Namuliira - Uganda Economic Policy Research Center. Presentation. 
• Frequent Measurement of Health Out-of-Pocket Expenditures. Patrick Hoang-Vu Eozenou - World Bank. Presentation.
• Inequality of Internet Use on Youth’s Mental Health and Wellbeing: Evidence from Ethiopia during COVID-19 Period. Trang Pham - Maastricht University. Presentation and Paper.

Discussant's Comments. Jed Friedman - World Bank. 

Video recording. Human Capital and Wellbeing

2. Firms, Jobs, Gender

• Digital Development and Employment Gender Gaps during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Latin America and the Caribbean. Gustavo Canavire - World Bank. Presentation and Paper.
• Small Businesses, Big Dynamics: New Insights from High-Frequency Phone Surveys in Sub-Saharan Africa. Pauline Castaing - World Bank. Presentation.
• Working for Yourself or for your Kids? Childcare Expansion Policy in Uzbekistan. Dilnovoz Abdurazzakova - Central European University. Presentation and Paper.
• Seasonal Adjustments of Labor in Six Sub-Saharan Africa Countries. Ismael Yacoubou Djima - World Bank. Presentation.

Discussant's Comments. Louise Paul Delvaux - World Bank.

Video recordings:

Firms, Jobs and Gender

Chris Barrett’s Keynote Speech  

3. Conflict and Displacement

• Near-real-time Welfare and Livelihood Impacts of an Active War: Evidence from Ethiopia. Mehari Hiluf Abay -University of Florence. Presentation and Paper.
• Forced Displacement and Vulnerability: Evidence from High-frequency Microdata Across 11 LMICs. Yannick Markhof - UNU-MERIT. Presentation.
• Measuring Child Mortality from Mobile Phone Surveys in Countries Facing Security Challenges: an Assessment in Burkina Faso. Kassoum Dianou - UC Louvain. Presentation and Paper.
• Ukraine: Monitoring the Pulse of Businesses Through the War. Franklin Maduko - Ulster University Belfast/ World Bank. Presentation.

Discussant's Comments. Nga Thi Viet Nguyen - World Bank.

Video recording. Conflict and Displacement

4. Methods for High-Frequency and Phone Surveys

• Dialing into Dynamics: Enhancing Measurement of Time-Varying Variables via High-Frequency Phone Surveys. Tim Deisemann - European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Presentation.
• Phone Tree Surveys and the Wisdom of Crowds. Brian Dillon - Cornell University. Presentation.
• The Effect of Survey Mode on Data Quality. Amparo Palacios-Lopez - World Bank. Presentation.

Discussant's Comments. Paul Christian - World Bank.

Video recording. Methods for High-Frequency and Phone Surveys

5. Food Security and Agriculture

• Exploring the Link Between Food Security and Subjective Well-Being using Tanzania High Frequency Phone Survey. Martin Chegere - University of Dar es Salaam. Presentation and Paper.
• Food Security among Subsistence Farmers: Challenges of Understanding and Assessing Changes using High-Frequency Phone Survey Data. Anna Josephson - University of Arizona. Presentation.

Discussant's Comments. Olivier Ecker - IFPRI.

Video recording. Food Security and Agriculture

6. Extreme Weather, Shocks and Socioeconomic Impacts

• Temperature and Precipitation Extremes and Labor Supply in Central Africa. Vladimir Hlasny - UNESC-WA. Presentation.
• Rainfall Shocks and Intra-Annual Food Insecurity in Uganda: Insights from a High- Frequency Phone Survey. Chris M. Boyd - Towson University. Presentation and Paper.
• The Impact of Mobile Money Levies on Household Coping Strategies in Tanzania. Revocatus Paul -  World Bank. Presentation.

Discussant's Comments. Miki Doan - World Bank.

Video recording. Extreme Weather, Shocks and Socioeconomic Impacts

Datasets

To encourage submissions using the LSMS-HFPS data, the LSMS has made available an open-access, harmonized dataset. The dataset can be accessed here and the underlying Stata syntax can be accessed here.

The dataset covers all LSMS-HFPS survey rounds and allows linkages at the household and individual levels over time. It can be integrated with the LSMS-Integrated Survey on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) series of nationally representative face-to-face household surveys in the same countries, which include geovariables and cluster locations.

The scope of data can be explored on the LSMS webpage, while the raw LSMS-HFPS and LSMS-ISA data is available on the World Bank Microdata Library.

Contact: LSMS_HFPS@worldbank.org

The conference's organizing committee includes Philip Wollburg, Alemayehu Ambel, and Karenina Velandia, working under the direction of Talip Kilic. The following Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) team members also supported the review and selection of the conference papers: Sydney Gourlay, Adriana Paolantonio, Ivette Contreras, Akuffo Amankwah, Hai-Anh Dang, and Marco Tiberti.