Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy Pvt. Ltd. (CMIE) Data
Consumption Pyramids fills a serious gap in the official Indian statistical system. It delivers fast-frequency data on consumption expenditure of households.
Consumption Pyramids delivers a monthly series of household consumption expenditure and snapshots of weekly expenses on select fast-moving expense items. With a large sample of households this becomes a potent resource to understand the changes in household consumption expenditure and the changes in the structure of these expenses.
This is in sharp contrast to the official surveys on household consumption expenditure, that are too few and far in between. They also have the tendency of being rejected by the government and remaining unavailable to researchers and other users alike. The last survey for which data is available is 2011-12. In contrast, Consumption Pyramids delivers monthly data regularly with a lag of just four months.
Nevertheless, there are important differences between the surveys conducted by the National Sample Survey Organization and by Consumption Pyramids. The latter fills in a gap but, it is no replacement to the NSSO survey.
The Consumer Pyramids Household Survey focuses on two questions. First, how much do households spend, in rupee terms, on consumption expenditure and second, what is the broad distribution of this spend.
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Please acknowledge the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics at the University of Chicago on all written work for the usage of this data.