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Lao Expenditure and Consumption Survey 2002/2003
Third round

Lao People's Democratic Republic, 2002 - 2003
Reference ID
LAO_LSB_LECS-2002-2003_v1.0
Producer(s)
Swedish International Development Agency
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Metadata
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Created on
Jun 14, 2026
Last modified
Jun 15, 2026
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  • Study Description
  • Data Dictionary
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  • Identification
  • Version
  • Scope
  • Coverage
  • Producers and sponsors
  • Sampling
  • Survey instrument
  • Data collection
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  • Identification

    Survey ID number

    LAO_LSB_LECS-2002-2003_v1.0

    Title

    Lao Expenditure and Consumption Survey 2002/2003

    Subtitle

    Third round

    Abbreviation or Acronym

    LECS 2002/2003

    Country
    Name Country code
    Lao People's Democratic Republic LAO
    Study type

    Income/Expenditure/Household Survey [hh/ies]

    Series Information

    The Lao Expenditure Consumption Survey 2002/2003 (LECSIII) was conducted for the first time in 1992/1993, and the second time was 2002/2003 conducted by Lao Statistics Bureau in cooperation with 17 provincial governments, supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). LECSIII was designed to monitor various indicators identified such as GDP and poverty. LECSIII has more questions and indicators than LECS 1997/1998 (LECSII).

    Abstract

    The first Lao Expenditure and Consumption Survey (LECS) was conducted in 1992/1993. The second survey was conducted in 1997/1998. This paper describes the third LECS survey (LECS-3), conducted in 2002/2003. The surveys have been conducted as part of the Sida-financed cooperation project between the National Statistics Center (LSB) of Lao PDR and Statistics Sweden.

    Data from the surveys are used for a number of purposes, the most important being to produce estimates of household consumption and production for the national accounts. This includes estimating production in household agricultural activities and business activities. Another important use of the data is for the conduction of poverty analyses.
    Measurement of household consumption
    Household consumption is an important variable in the survey. In order to get accurate measurements of the consumption it was decided to ask the households to keep a diary of their transactions. The measurement of daily consumption through a diary kept by the household puts a heavy burden not only on the households but also on the field interviewers. Many households, especially in the rural areas, need frequent support in the task of keeping the diary. In order to secure an acceptable quality in the data it was deemed necessary to keep the interviewers in the village for the whole month rather than having the interviewers travelling to the villages for repeated interviews and follow-up.
    Measurement of household production
    Large parts of the value added and labor input concerns household production in agriculture or informal household activities. In order to capture the production three modules were includeded in the LECS: 1) A “light” time diary is used to capture time use for members of the household that are 10 years and above. This enables measurement of labor input in hours in the Lao economy. 2) Two modules on agricultural and household business operations were included. This makes it possible to calculate value added in household production in agriculture and informal business activities.

    The 'light' time use diary used in LECS-3 has been developed jointly by Statistics Sweden and ESRC Research Centre on Micro Social Change at the University of Essex. The diary contains 22 pre-defined activities with a pronounced emphasis on economic activities. For some of these activities, the interviewer probes for additional information at the time when the diaries are collected. Those who mark time for worked as employed are asked whether it is as farm worker, in the governmental sector, in the private sector, or something else. Those who mark time for own business work are asked what they do in that business work.

    Kind of Data

    Sample survey data [ssd]

    Unit of Analysis
    • Macro estimates for the National Accounts, both private consumption and household invest-ments and income from agriculture and businesses.
    • The consumption structure (weighing system) for the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
    • Estimates of labor force
    • Statistics on access to services.
    • Statistics on nutrition.
    • Statistics on poverty and income distribution.

    Version

    Version Description

    Vesion 1.1: Edited data, first version, for internal use only.

    Version Date

    2010-02-22

    Scope

    Notes

    The Lao Expenditure and Consumption Survey (LECS III) covers the whole of Lao PDR. The statistical unit is the households and the survey covers economic transactions of households to es-timate household income, consumption and production and a number of social indicators.
    The survey was undertaken from March 2002 to February 2003 (12 months) and it is a survey that LSB plans to conduct every 5 years. The first and second LECS were conducted in 1992/93 and 1997/98.

    Topics
    Topic Vocabulary URI
    consumption/consumer behaviour [1.1] CESSDA http://www.nesstar.org/rdf/common
    income, property and investment/saving [1.5] CESSDA http://www.nesstar.org/rdf/common
    working conditions [3.6] CESSDA http://www.nesstar.org/rdf/common
    basic skills education [6.1] CESSDA http://www.nesstar.org/rdf/common
    compulsory and pre-school education [6.2] CESSDA http://www.nesstar.org/rdf/common
    nutrition [8.7] CESSDA http://www.nesstar.org/rdf/common
    health care and medical treatment [8.5] CESSDA http://www.nesstar.org/rdf/common
    housing [10.1] CESSDA http://www.nesstar.org/rdf/common
    time use [13.9] CESSDA http://www.nesstar.org/rdf/common
    business/industrial management and organisation [2.2] CESSDA http://www.nesstar.org/rdf/common
    agricultural, forestry and rural industry [2.1] CESSDA http://www.nesstar.org/rdf/common

    Coverage

    Geographic Coverage
    • National coverage.
    • Provinces.
    Universe

    The survey covered all de jure household members (usual residents)

    Producers and sponsors

    Primary investigators
    Name Affiliation
    Swedish International Development Agency Swedish International Development Agency, Sida,
    Funding Agency/Sponsor
    Name Abbreviation
    Swedish International Development Agency Sida

    Sampling

    Sampling Procedure

    The LECS-III is designed essentially as LECS-II with regard to sample design. Experiences from LECS-II have been used to fine-tune the sample design. The number of primary sampling units (PSU) has been increased and the sample size within PSU reduced, giving a somewhat smaller sample in terms of households.

    The sample consists of 8100 households selected through a two-stage sample design. Villages serve as primary sampling units (PSU). The villages are stratified on eighteen provinces and within provinces on urban/rural sector. The rural villages are further stratified on villages with “access to road” and “no access to road”. In all, the village population was divided into 18 (provinces) x 3 (urban/rural classes) = 54 sampling strata.

    The total first-stage sample consists of 540 villages. The sample is allocated to provinces approximately proportionally to the square root of population size according to population census. The PSUs are selected with a systematic probability proportionate to size (PPS) procedure in each province. Table 1 shows the sample allocation over strata.

    Table 1: Number of sample villages in each stratum.
    Province Urban villages Rural villages with access to road Rural villages without access to road Total
    Vientiane C. 36 12 . 48
    Phongsaly 3 6 15 24
    Luangnamtha 4 11 9 24
    Oudomxay 4 8 12 24
    Bokeo 3 18 3 24
    Luangprabang 4 19 13 36
    Huaphanh 2 16 18 36
    Xayabury 6 25 5 36
    Xiengkhuang 5 8 11 24
    Vientiane 4 29 3 36
    Borikhamxay 5 11 8 24
    Khammuane 6 26 4 36
    Savannakhet 9 27 12 48
    Saravane 3 12 21 36
    Sekong 4 7 7 18
    Champasack 6 27 3 36
    Attapeu 2 9 7 18
    Xaysomboun SR 1 11 . 12
    Total 107 282 151 540
    The households in the selected villages were listed prior to the survey. 15 households were selected with systematic sampling in each village, giving a sample of 8100 households.

    Survey instrument

    Questionnaires

    The statistical provincial offices were in charge of the field operations with supervision from NSC. Data on expenditure and income were collected for a whole month based on daily notation of all transaction divided into consumption, agriculture production and household businesses. Interviews with household heads or other household members were held during various parts of the month. At 3
    the end of the month households were asked about purchases of durable goods, e.g. furniture, TV, cars, motorcycles, etc., during the preceding 12 months. In the middle of the month one 24 hour pe-riod was selected to record data on time use for all persons in the household ten years and above.
    LECS III contains six modules, a diary to record household transactions, household questionnaire and household time use, prices from markets, village questionnaire to village head and a primary school survey. These modules have the following basic structure:

    • Diary: All household transactions during sampled months. Trans-actions coded to consumption/expenditure, household busi-ness, agriculture and investment outlays for Household.
    • Household questionnaire:
      Household composition for All household members,
      Parents for Non-household member,
      Education for 6 years and above,
      Labour force participation for 10 years and above,
      Victimization for household,
      Nutrition for household
      Health check, measurements of heights and weights for Children 4 years and below,
      Possession of durables and assets values
      Housing conditions for household
      Construction activities for household
      Household business for household,
      Agriculture for household,
      Health - evaluation of health, use of health services, health seeking behavior, health costs,
      Purchases and selling of durables during the last 12 months,
      Income and transfers - by all members of household,
      Borrowing and lending - by household.
    • Time Use: Time spent recorded for a period of 24 hours in a sampled day for 22 activities for 10 years and above.
    • Price: Prices for 92 basic goods and services recorded in nearest local market for Maket
    • Village questionnaire: Data provided by village heads on situations in the village concerning.
      Demography,
      Access to services,
      Agriculture,
      General economic conditions,
      Wages and prices.
      for Village
    • Primary school module: Covers 470 primary schools in or close to the selected villages for Primary school.

    Data collection

    Dates of Data Collection
    Start End
    2002-03 2003-02
    Mode of data collection
    • Face-to-face [f2f]
    Data Collectors
    Name Affiliation Abbreviation
    Lao Statistics Bureau Ministry of Planning and Investment LSB
    Planning and Investment of Province Ministry of Planning and Investment PIP

    Data Access

    Access authority
    Name Affiliation URL
    Director General Lao Statistics Bureau https://www.nsc.gov.ph
    Confidentiality
    Is signing of a confidentiality declaration required? Confidentiality declaration text
    yes The Statistics Law of Lao PDR guarantees that identities of respondents are kept confidential.

    Before being granted access to the dataset, all users have to formally agree:
    1. To make no copies of any files or portions of files to which s/he is granted access except those authorized by the data depositor.
    2. Not to use any technique in an attempt to learn the identity of any person, establishment, or sampling unit not identified on public use data files.
    3. To hold in strictest confidence the identification of any establishment or individual that may be inadvertently revealed in any documents or discussion, or analysis. Such inadvertent identification revealed in her/his analysis will be immediately brought to the attention of the data depositor.
    Access conditions

    Authorization to use this data is granted to designated individuals in the concerned division of the Lao Statistics Bureau (LSB). Under no circumstances shall the authorized user reproduce, distribute, sell or lend the entire data or parts thereof to any other data user apart from himself or that of authorized employees in the DoS.

    Citation requirements

    "Lao Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Planning and Investment, Lao PDR, Lao Expenditure and Consumption Survey 2002/2003 (LECS III), Version 1.1 (June 2010)."

    Disclaimer and copyrights

    Disclaimer

    The user of the data acknowledges that the Lao Statistics Bureau bears no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.

    Copyright

    (c) 2010, Lao Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Planning and Investment, Lao PDR

    Contacts

    Contacts
    Name Affiliation Email URL
    Deputy Director Data Services Division, Lao Statistics Bureau nscit@etllao.com https://www.lsb.gov.la

    Metadata production

    DDI Document ID

    LAO_LSB_LECS-2002-2003_m_EN_v1.0

    Producers
    Name Abbreviation Role
    Mr. Kingphet Kingphet Documenter
    Mr. Houmnylat RATTANAVONG Lat Documenter
    Mr. Dueansavanh THAMACHACK Deuan Data base specialist
    Date of Metadata Production

    2010-02-22

    Metadata version

    DDI Document version

    Version 1.1 (June 2010)
    Version 1.0 (February 2010)

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