A fundamental aspect of the work conducted by the Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) is methodological research. It has two objectives: improve the quality and efficiency of household survey data collection and develop standards and best practices for survey practitioners and researchers worldwide. As a result, policy design and development investments are accurately informed and can be more effective.
Our approach has three main components:
- Review of current survey practices and identification of data needs and data gaps in consultation with experts and stakeholders.
- Implementation of methodological experiments to test a variety of survey methods in diverse contexts and settings to identify the most effective techniques to collect data.
- Development of open-access guidelines and tools to incorporate validated and cost-effective methods into household surveys.
And our work follows six principles:
- Strategic Alignment. We are guided by The World Bank Group’s Scorecard, which aims to improve the measurement of our mission to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity on a livable planet.
- Public Goods Creation. We develop open-access operational guidelines and standards based on methodological research that are widely used by survey practitioners, researchers and operations.
- Technological Advancement. We are constantly pushing the frontier by incorporating the latest technology in survey methods, including georeferenced data, artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms.
- Meaningful Partnerships. We bring together a multidisciplinary team that combines the expertise of the best in academia and international organizations, as well as local specialists.
- Validation. We assess new methods compared to a best practice or objective benchmark and across different contexts.
- Scalability. We maximize the impact of our work by focusing on scalable solutions that can adapt to a wide range of contexts and have the flexibility to suit the needs of different countries and partners.
Over the past years, we have conducted extensive research in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) on the topics below.
Click on the icons to have an overview of each of them, the work areas we have focused on and all the associated resources, available to download.
