The models were evaluated for their ability to accurately impute poverty. Each model was used to impute poverty in other HBS years, and the results were compared against the direct poverty estimates using the consumption data. Table 2 shows the official poverty rates observed from the data in the national, urban and rural areas. The national poverty rates increased from 2008 and 2009 to 2010, and the increase is statistically significant although the size of the increase is not so large.<sup>4</sup> Although urban poverty rates remained relatively stable over the three years, rural poverty increased noticeably from 7.5% to 13.6% from 2008 to 2010.

The poverty rates that are within the 95% confidence interval of the official poverty rates are bolded. The table shows, the model developed in the 2009 HBS data could project national, rural and urban poverty rates for all three years well. In fact, all poverty rates projected by the model based on 2009 HBS are within the 95% confidence intervals of the official poverty rates for all of the three years. On the other hand, that is not the case for the 2008 and 2010 models. For example, the model developed in the 2008 HBS data cannot project the national and rural official poverty rates of 2010, while that of the 2010 HBS data cannot project the national and rural official poverty rates of 2008. Therefore, we decided to use the 2009 model since the selected models have the ability to predict poverty across time.

# **4.2 Questionnaire Design and a Baseline Survey**

The questionnaire used for this experiment was based on the variables in the final imputation models discussed above. The main questions that are needed to impute poverty are designed to be exactly the same for both the face-to-face interview (F2F) and CATI groups. For CATI group, an additional survey, a baseline survey, was needed to collect telephone numbers and household identification information.

The baseline survey for the CATI group collects as many phone numbers (both telephone and cell phone) as possible from the household to increase the chances for the follow-up interview. The questionnaire included only three questions: (1) telephone number for either a land line or mobile phone, (2) name of the main user of the telephone number, and (3) relationship to respondent.

The main questionnaire administered for both the F2F and CATI groups was comprised of 21 questions covering the household roster (name, occupancy during last 12 months, sex, age, educational attainment, predominant activity, months worked during last 12 months), main source of household income, economic status and satisfaction, housing characteristics (water supply, sewerage, electricity, district heating, telephone, number of rooms), and ownership of 12 different durable goods, and purchases of clothing and footwear in the last 3 months. The wording of the questions was kept the same as the original questions in the HBS to the extent possible. The F2F’s questionnaire includes the main questionnaire and the CATI pre-interview questionnaire. Screen shots of the main questionnaire are available in the Appendix.

> 4 95% confidence intervals of the official poverty rates are shown in the Appendix Table .

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