The paper addresses the issue of the accuracy of standard-of-living measurements using household survey data. First, it highlights the fact that lighter data collection processes in some developing countries have added to measurement errors in consumption and income aggregates measurement errors. The paper reasserts the need to apply reference guidelines to the measurement of household consumption in order to compute comparable distribution indicators across countries and over time. Second, it contends that it is hard to analyze inequality solely from consumption patterns without taking income and savings into account. Two solutions are proposed for the correction of income measurement errors: by using savings declarations and by implementing a multiple imputation procedure. The results are based on a careful analysis of the EPM93 survey of Madagascar whose design is quite close to the LSMS household surveys, and the ENV98 survey of Côte d'Ivoire representative of surveys conducted nowadays in most Sub-Saharan African countries.

We explore the impact of migrants' Home Town Associations (HTAs) on the provision of public goods in Mali. We combine an original dataset on all the HTAs created by Malian migrants in France from 1981 with census data on public goods in all Malian villages since 1976, and we run double-difference estimations to compare villages with and without an HTA, before and after the creation of the HTAs. We find robust evidence that the provision of schools, health centers, and, to a lesser extent, water amenities has increased significantly faster in villages targeted by an HTA between 1987 and 2009 than in control villages.