The World Bank Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) program is inviting researchers to submit extended abstracts for The Pulse of Progress: Harnessing High-Frequency Survey Data for Development Research in the Polycrisis Era. This one-day conference will take place on December 10, 2024, at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The conference will celebrate four years of the LSMS efforts in conducting longitudinal high-frequency phone surveys (HFPS) in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda. Launched initially to address data and knowledge gaps related to the COVID-19 pandemic, these surveys facilitate routine monitoring of large-scale shocks and their socioeconomic impacts. They have had a transformative impact on national statistical and data systems, complementing existing in-person survey infrastructure 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 countries.
The conference aims to showcase applied research that leverages high-frequency phone survey data, including but not limited to the LSMS-HFPS, as the primary data source for addressing substantive questions in development economics and related fields.
Submission
We welcome extended abstracts (max. 800 words) for innovative research papers that utilize high-frequency phone survey data to study social and economic development issues. Submissions may cover a range of topics, including but not limited to:
| Resilience and shocks | Food security |
| Health | Inequality, poverty and wellbeing |
| Education | Jobs and labor |
| Climate change | Agriculture |
| Conflict and fragility | Gender |
Researchers should submit their proposals to: LSMS_HFPS@worldbank.org. Early-career researchers are especially encouraged to apply. The submitter should indicate who will be presenting and confirm that the presenter can attend the conference in person. Travel and accommodation expenses for selected presenters will be covered by the World Bank.
We particularly encourage submissions using the LSMS-HFPS data, and to facilitate them, we are making available an open-access, harmonized dataset accessible here (dataset) and here (stata syntax).
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, including geo-variables and cluster locations. Interested authors can explore the scope of data on the LSMS webpage and access raw LSMS-HFPS and LSMS-ISA data through the World Bank Microdata Library.