Let down again...
this time by data...
even as we work religiously on sundays...keeping the faith that probably all this number crunching will lead to some conclusive results in our efforts to highlight the prevailing crisis in Indian agriculture...we discover that the NSSO doesen't quite support us in our endeavours...
firstly, this Situation Assessment Survey of Farmers takes into consideration only farmers...that is people who have soem land in their possession..so no data on landless labour in this survey...
secondly...just when i was getting appreciative of the fact that the surveyors had visited the same sample twice, once in the kharif season and the second time in the Rabi season...we realised that it was quite a pointless visit. there is absolutely no data on loans taken or assets (including landholding) possessed in the second visit. the surveyors have assumed these factors to remain constant between the two cropping seasons..while common sense would tell you...that indebtedness situations could differ depending on the success of the previous season's harvest.
anyway...here's something amusing that you should know about having extremely clean data...(especially the NSS data) with no glitches...it could lead to two conclusions..either the level of understanding between the interviewer and the respondent is very high..or in all probability the data has been entered under a Banyan tree...
p.s. trust me...it's much easier dealing with being let down by data than by anything else.
posted by Vibha @ 9:13 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Nice piece that... especially the shortcomings in data collection... something every true blue econometrician gets hyper about.
Could you let me know a little more about your project, if you don't mind? And loved the bit at the end about being let down by data!
hey ashish!!
how's the corporate life coming along in Bangalore?
well...we are writing a book on agrarian crisis in India..so am dealing with the 59th Round of the NSS which was a Situation Assessment Survey of Farmers. am still in the initial stages of extracting the relevant variables for our study. eg. landholdings, loans taken..expenses on inputs..access to extension services..,yields, returns, etc, etc. then compare Crude Death Rates and Suicide Mortality Rates.
at the later stages as all "good" economists do..we might run regressions too. have to do a little more of content analysis of media reports well..just add to what what i did last year.
basically..a whole lot of number crunching for now.
p.s i met your friend Shoan Joshi here at IGIDR...he is working here on a couple of monetary economics projects.
actually he must have told you that..:) silly me.
oye...dumbo!!..how's it going..missing u!!
Aparna
okie dokie..pretty much regular me..come to work on Sundays...get invited to ice cream by my prof's 2 year old daughter, etc, etc...
so sweet..you miss me and all...call more often nerdie!!
I AM NOT A NERDIE!!! i'm not the one working on Sundays!!..useless woman. By the way why are u not on Orkut? If u need an invite lemme know
Aparna
no way am i going to come on Orkut..don't need to any more people from the past...those i need to know..i am in touch with them...the whole of this place is hung on it...and i am nto so impressed with it after all..
we are just 150 kms away aparna...a local call away...so we can stick to Graham Bell's invention.
about working on Sundays..i think both of us know why i work on Sundays...and both of us know that it's best that way.
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