MEXICAN FAMILY LIFE SURVEY

1. MEXICAN FAMILY LIFE SURVEY Graciela Teruel (UIA-CCPR) Luis Rubalcava (CIDE-CCPR)

2. Institutional Collaboration

3. Characteristics • Multi topic survey – covers very broad array of behaviors and indicators of well-being • Representative at national, regional, urban or rural level • 8,400 households (35,000 individuals) in 150 communities across all of Mexico • Panel – waves every 3 years in 2002, 2005, 2008…

4. Characteristics • Collect information at household level • And interview every household member (or care-taker) about their own lives • Biomarkers (anthropometry, blood) and cognitive achievement • Parallel community survey

5. Household Questionnaire • Household level information • Expenditures and consumption from own production • Farm and non-farm business • Assets, savings, non-labor income • Public and private transfers; public assistance • Shocks (demographic, economic, natural disasters)

6. Household Questionnarie • Individual -Specific Information (adults) • Education history; cognitive assessment • Earnings and labor supply history; time allocation; exposure to crime • Marriage, migration histories (pregnancy history for women) • Household decision-making; interactions with non-co-resident kin • Health—self-assessed physical and psycho-social health; health behaviors (use of health care; smoking) • Health—biomarkers include height, weight, waist to hip; blood pressure, hemoglobin, glucose, cholesterol, dried blood spots • Expectations about future

7. Community Questionnarie • Detailed information collected on environment in which respondents live: • Community Infrastructure (physical, economic and social characteristics) • Prices (staple and basic goods) • School (physical infrastructure and services provided) • Health Service Infrastructure (services provided) • Health Providers • Sample drawn to be representative of services available to respondents.

8. ENIGH 2002 ENIGH 2002 .000 .0002 MXFLS 2 002 MXFLS 2002 00015 .000 . 0001 . .000 00005 . 0 0 0 200 400 600 800 0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 Food spending Total spending Expenditure Patterns ENIGH 2002 vs MXFLS-1

9. Kidnapped Sexual abuse/ harassment Assault Other Victimization MxFLS-1 & National Insecurity Survey MXFLS-1 ENINS-1 92.2% 89.6% 0.4% 0.4% 0.3% 0.8% 7.1% 9.2%

10. 2005 • Turn MxFLS into panel with waves every 3 years • Measure change over time and through life course • Track movers within Mexico and movers to the United States and interview them in new location … and in 2008 follow them back to Mexico • Extremely rich set of information about individuals, their households, their families and their communities covering broad array of indicators of well-being and decisions over time to better understand the behavioral choices that individuals and families make

11. 2005 • But no direct information on preferences which play key role in many models of family decision-making • Opportunity to try to integrate some of methods in experimental economics with large-scale socio-economic survey • Potential to provide uniquely rich information not normally available in socio-economic surveys which will be of value in testing models of behavior • And provide information about preferences in a population-based sample

12. 2005 • MxFLS-Preferences Pilot • PI and co-PIs: • Catherine Eckel V. Joseph Hotz • Kate Johnson Cesar Martinelli • Susan Parker Luis Rubalcava • Seth Sanders Graciela Teruel • Duncan Thomas

13. MxFLS-PP Goals • Assess costs and benefits of integrating experimental approaches to measuring preferences in HH socio-economic surveys • Preferences: • Inter-personal preferences (altruism, reciprocity and trust) • Inter-temporal preferences • Risk

14. Why measure preferences? • Many economic models rely on a parameterization of utility for empirical predictions • Allocation of resources within the family • Investment and savings behavior • Migration • Adoption of new technology • Few large-scale surveys attempt to directly measure preferences • Incorporating preference measures into MxFLS allows us to investigate a broad range of hypotheses about individual and family behavior

15. Surveys v. Games • Survey respondents may not think hard about questions (responses will be noisy), may misrepresent their true preferences • On purpose (image, self-image) • To make experimenter happy (demand) • Inadvertently (wishful thinking?) • Note: no cost to misrepresentation! • Games are designed so that misrepresenting preferences is costly • Ex: gambles, altruism

16. Risk attitudes: choice among 6 gambles Time preference: series of choices between now and later Altruism: Comparative Dictator Game Social norms/reciprocity: Ultimatum game Trust/trustworthiness: Trust game Preference measures: Tasks

17. Task characteristics Simple tasks Graphic representation No tables Substantial payoffs Tradeoffs Fewer mistakes Mistakes = noise Low literacy biases measures! But coarser screen Strategy for preference measures

18. Adapted for Mexican Villages

19. MxFLS-PP • During second half of 2005 • Implement incentivized experiments on 1,500 adults (age 15-70) in 600 MxFLS-2 households • Parallel collection of survey information on preferences

20. ENCUESTA NACIONAL SOBRE NIVELES DE VIDA DE LOS HOGARES MEXICAN FAMILY LIFE SURVEY http://www.ennvih.uia.mx/ http://www.ennvih.cide.edu/