Living Standards Survey 1995 -1997

(a) DATA ENTRY
All responses obtained from the household interviews were recorded in the household questionnaires. These were then entered into the computer, in the field, using data entry programs written in BASIC. The data produced by the data entry program were in the form of household files, i.e. one data file for all of the data in one household/community questionnaire. Thus, for the household there were about 880 data files. These data files were processed at the University of Toronto and the World Bank to produce datasets in statistical software formats, each of which contained information for all households for a subset of variables. The subset of variables chosen corresponded to data entry screens, so these files are hereafter referred to as "screen files". For the household survey component 66 data files were created. Members of the survey team checked and corrected data by checking the questionnaires for original recorded information. We would like to emphasize that correction here refers to checking questionnaires, in case of errors in skip patterns, incorrect values, or outlying values, and changing values if and only if data in the computer were different from those in the questionnaires. The personnel in charge of data preparation were given specific instructions not to change data even if values in the questionnaires were clearly incorrect. We have no reason to believe that these instructions were not followed, and every reason to believe that the data resulting from these checks and corrections are accurate and of the highest quality possible.

(b) DATA EDITING
The screen files were then brought to World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C. and uploaded to a mainframe computer, where they were converted to "standard" LSMS formats by merging datasets to produce separate datasets for each section with variable names corresponding to the questionnaires. In some cases, this has meant a single dataset for a section, while in others it has meant retaining "screen" datasets with just the variable names changed. Linking Parts of the Household Survey Each household has a unique identification number which is contained in the variable HID. Values for this variable range from 10101 to 60520. The first number is the code for the six counties in which data were collected, the second and third digits are for the villages within each county. Finally, the last two digits of HID contain the household number within the village. Data for households from different parts of the survey can be merged by using the HID variable which appears in each dataset of the household survey. To link information for an individual use should be made of both the household identification number, HID, and the person identification number, PID. A child in the household can be linked to the parents, if the parents are household members, through the parents' id codes in Section 01B. For parents who are not in the household, information is collected on the parent's schooling, main occupation and whether he/she is currently alive. Household members can be linked with their non-resident children through the parents' id codes in Section 01C. Linking the Household to the Community Data The community data have a somewhat different set of identifying variables than the household data. Each community dataset has four identifying variables: province (code 7 for Hebei and code 8 for Liaoning); county (six two digit codes, of which the first digit represents province and the second digit represents the three counties in each province); township (3 digit code, first digit is county, second digit is county and third digit is township); and village (4 digit code, first digit is county, second digit is county, third digit is township, and third fourth digit is village). Constructed Data Set Researchers at the World Bank and the University of Toronto have created a data set with information on annual household expenditures, region codes, etc. This constructed data set is made available for general use with the understanding that the description below is the only documentation that will be provided. Any manipulation of the data requires assumptions to be made and, as much as possible, those assumptions are explained below. Except where noted, the data set has been created using only the original (raw) data sets. A researcher could construct a somewhat different data set by incorporating different assumptions. Aggregate Expenditure, TOTEXP. The dataset TOTEXP contains variables for total household annual expenditures (for the year 1994) and variables for the different components of total household expenditures: food expenditures, non-food expenditures, use value of consumer durables, etc. These, along with the algorithm used to calculate household expenditures are detailed in Appendix D. The dataset also contains the variable HID, which can be used to match this dataset to the household level data set. Note that all of the expenditure variables are totals for the household. That is, they are not in per capita terms. Researchers will have to divide these variables by household size to get per capita numbers. The household size variable is included in the data set.