Abstract
This chapter gives a comprehensive introduction to Japanese household surveys. Household surveys play an important role not only for academic research, but also for policy making. Macro data, or National Accounts, are not sufficient to fully understand the state of the economy because they tell us little about heterogeneity among economic agents, which is critical information for policy makers in an aging society like Japan. Given the importance of Japan’s myriad household surveys in documenting heterogeneity in the behavior of Japanese households, systematic knowledge is needed to appropriately employ this micro-data. This chapter brings an outline of the system of Japan’s nine household surveys. Their coverage, sampling design, and available information are explored.
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Notes
- 1.
For a detailed discussion on the boundaries of economic activity, and on how much a statistic reveals about economic activity, see the discussions in the manuals for the System of National Accounts (European Communities et al. 2009).
- 2.
See Chap. 2 of this booklet for a more detailed discussion.
- 3.
To convert household-based variables to individual-based variables, a technique known as the equivalence scale has traditionally been used (see, for example, Lewbel and Pendakur 2008).
- 4.
See Browning et al. (2013) on identifying economies of scale and intra-household decision-making.
- 5.
- 6.
Unayama (2011) shows how the permanent household ID can be constructed for the FIES.
- 7.
The word “Schedule” is sometimes used to mean “Questionnaire” in official documents published by the SBJ. Here, we follow the official translation.
- 8.
There was another monthly survey for single-person households, named the “Income and Expenditure Survey for One-Person Households,” from 1994 until 2002, when it was merged with the FIES.
- 9.
This outlet information is not available in 1989.
- 10.
In December, the surveyed period is not the last week of the month, but rather the week from the 20th to the 26th.
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Acknowledgements
The author thanks to David Cashin (Federal Reserve Board), Cameron LaPoint (Columbia University), and the seminar participants at the Development Bank of Japan for their helpful comments. A part of this project is financially supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (15H03357, 15H01943, 16H02029).
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Unayama, T. (2018). System of Japanese Household Surveys. In: Introduction to Japanese Household Surveys. SpringerBriefs in Economics(). Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7680-0_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7680-0_1
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