Measuring Ownership, Control, and Use of Assets
Assets generate and help diversify income, provide collateral to access credit, alleviate liquidity constraints in the face of shocks, and are key inputs into empowerment. Despite the importance of individual-level data on asset ownership and contr...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/934731500383137028/Measuring-ownership-control-and-use-of-assets http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27953 |
| Summary: | Assets generate and help diversify
income, provide collateral to access credit, alleviate
liquidity constraints in the face of shocks, and are key
inputs into empowerment. Despite the importance of
individual-level data on asset ownership and control, and
that most assets are owned by individuals, solely or
jointly, it is typical for the micro data on asset ownership
to be collected at the household level, often from only one
respondent per household. Even when the data are collected
at the individual level, with identification of reported or
documented owners of a given asset within the household, the
information is still often solicited from a single
respondent. Further, the identification of owners is seldom
paired with the identification of individuals who hold
various rights to assets, limiting understanding of the
interrelationships among ownership and rights, and whether
these relationships vary across individuals. Through a
review of the existing approaches to data collection and the
relevant literature on survey methodology, this paper
presents an overview of the current best practices for
collecting individual-level data on the ownership and
control of assets in household and farm surveys. The paper
provides recommendations in three areas: (1) respondent
selection; (2) definition and measurement of assess to and
ownership and control of assets; and (3) measurement of the
quantity, value, and quality of assets. Open methodological
questions that can be answered through analysis of existing
data or the collection and analysis of new data are
identified for future research. |
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