# **4.3 Data**

The household-level panel data for the empirical analysis were collected over a period of five years from households that were targeted by the MiDA land titling pilot intervention as well as those households located just outside the intervention area, i.e. the short-term control group and the long-term control group.

The first of the three surveys waves was collected in 2010; the second in 2011; and the third in 2014.<sup>9,10</sup> Therefore, all three survey waves were collected after the land titling intervention was initiated in 2009. The first two survey waves allow us to understand the short-term effects of the land titling program immediately after program initiation and the third survey wave gives us some insight into medium-term program impacts. Each of the three survey waves comprised of seven survey modules each covering a different dimension of the socio-economic characteristics including: demographic characteristics of sampled households; paid employment engaged in by household members; individual and household assets; agricultural production and land titling; non-farm enterprises; marital history of household heads and spouse(s); and financial literacy training.<sup>11</sup> The survey team also collected data on household and plot locations using GPS.

9 During the first round of field survey in 2010, a total of 65 enumerators were trained over a period of six days. Out of this number, 54 enumerators were selected for field work. The selection was based on the outcome of a test conducted to examine enumerator competence with regards to the questionnaire administration. In addition, a language fluency examination was also undertaken to ensure that enumerators had command over the Twi language which was going to be the main medium of communication with respondents. From the set of 54 enumerators, three working teams of 18 members were created. Each team consisted of a supervisor, a field editor, 2 plot mapping experts and 14 enumerators. The supervisor was the team leader and was responsible for overseeing, monitoring and, where necessary, correcting the work of the interviewers and the field editor. The enumerators conduct daily interviews with the head and spouse of sampled households. The plot mapping experts were responsible for demarcating boundaries within which enumeration should be conducted based on the three terms and also to map or take waypoints of plot location (treatment, short term and long Term). A similar strategy was adopted in the second and third rounds of survey.

10 Although the entire survey in the third round were stipulated to be undertaken in the year 2014, not all the targeted households could be contacted for interviews in 2014. Thus, in the first half of 2015, a tracking exercise was undertaken to mop-up as many households as possible which were missed in the 2014 episode of data collection.

11 The survey instruments consisted of seven modules that covered (1) seek the household’s consent to participate in the data collection exercise and also captures information on the household roster and members; (2) administered to individuals and is designed to gather basic demographic information on household members, on employment and the different sources of income for the male spouse only; (3) designed to collect data on assets owned by the household and individuals within the household - the main sub-sections include tools, durable goods, farm assets, as well as financial assets; (4) collect data on the household's agricultural activities covering agricultural assets such as land, livestock and equipment as well as providing data on agricultural production technology and processing, marketing, input use, output and incomes; (5) designed to gather information on employment, time use and different sources of income for the household head and spouse either as individual owners or jointly owned businesses which are not farm based; (6) the level of financial knowledge among respondents; (7) understand the relations between husband and wife/wives and to study how households in Ghana function.

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