Panel Surveys Overview

Two large-scale panel surveys have been initiated by the Economic Growth Center 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 have traveled to.  The survey instruments themselves are not static and will evolve over the duration of the fieldwork.  EGC faculty and graduate students are encouraged to add modules of interest to the surveys.