Estimating Economic Characteristics with Phone Data
- (pp. 72-76)
Abstract
Historically, economists have relied heavily on survey-based data collection to measure social and economic well-being. Here, we investigate the extent to which the "digital footprints" of an individual can be used to infer his or her socioeconomic characteristics. Using two different datasets from Afghanistan and Rwanda, we show that phone data can be used to estimate the wealth of individuals in two very different economic environments. However, we find that such models are relatively brittle, and that a model trained in one country cannot be used to estimate characteristics in another. These results suggest several promising applications and directions for future work.Citation
Blumenstock, Joshua E. 2018. "Estimating Economic Characteristics with Phone Data." AEA Papers and Proceedings, 108: 72-76. DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20181033Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- C51 Model Construction and Estimation
- C83 Survey Methods; Sampling Methods
- D14 Household Saving; Personal Finance
- D31 Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
- I31 General Welfare; Well-Being
- O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration