As an econ grad student, I deeply appreciate the borderline academic approach to data in this newsletter—it's always an insightful read! That said, I’m a bit skeptical about the MoSPI data used here. Couldn't find an email id so asking about it down here.
India measures household consumption through the Household Consumption Expenditure Surveys (HCES), with the most recent one being conducted for 2022-23 and the one before that in 2011-12. This leaves a significant gap in the data timeline. So, I’m curious—how did you construct a continuous graph of expenditure on different items with such discontinuous data?
It seems like projections might have been used to fill in the gaps. If so, it would be incredibly valuable (and transparent!) to disclose the assumptions, weights, or models used for those projections in the newsletter. This would help readers, especially data nerds like me, better understand and trust the story behind the numbers.
Keep up the great work—love what you’re doing here!
This dataset is different from the HCES (Household Consumption Expenditure Survey) that was conducted recently. The National Accounts Statistics provides continuous data using modeled and estimated figures, which allowed us to construct those continuous graphs.
That said, it’s a miss on our part for not putting out the source of our data in a more straightforward manner. This would have avoided the confusion, so thank you for pointing it out. We’ll definitely keep that in mind going forward to ensure better clarity.
As we also highlighted in the story, the observations from the MoSPI data differ quite a bit from the findings in the HCES that made headlines in September.
Why the discrepancies? There are a few possible reasons—differences in definitions, methodologies, or even how the data is approached. For instance, something as fundamental as how a “household” is defined or how expenses are calculated can vary significantly.
We always appreciate sharp observations like yours—keeps the conversation around data lively and meaningful!
Thank you for the quick and detailed response. This serious and professional approach is exactly what I admire about this initiative. Keep up the great work!
Thanks for sharing very well analysed articles on daily basis. On 1st article on Indian consumption, I would like to suggest to take few more variables in your analysis such as CPI and WPI as these also affect consumption pattern.
Only newschannel (if I may) where I don't have to chatgpt to dumb it down for me💯
hahah :)
As an econ grad student, I deeply appreciate the borderline academic approach to data in this newsletter—it's always an insightful read! That said, I’m a bit skeptical about the MoSPI data used here. Couldn't find an email id so asking about it down here.
India measures household consumption through the Household Consumption Expenditure Surveys (HCES), with the most recent one being conducted for 2022-23 and the one before that in 2011-12. This leaves a significant gap in the data timeline. So, I’m curious—how did you construct a continuous graph of expenditure on different items with such discontinuous data?
It seems like projections might have been used to fill in the gaps. If so, it would be incredibly valuable (and transparent!) to disclose the assumptions, weights, or models used for those projections in the newsletter. This would help readers, especially data nerds like me, better understand and trust the story behind the numbers.
Keep up the great work—love what you’re doing here!
Thank you for writing to us, Ashin!
If you look closely, we mentioned that these observations are based on the National Accounts Statistics 2024 shared by MoSPI. You can find the data here: https://www.mospi.gov.in/publication/national-accounts-statistics-2024.
This dataset is different from the HCES (Household Consumption Expenditure Survey) that was conducted recently. The National Accounts Statistics provides continuous data using modeled and estimated figures, which allowed us to construct those continuous graphs.
That said, it’s a miss on our part for not putting out the source of our data in a more straightforward manner. This would have avoided the confusion, so thank you for pointing it out. We’ll definitely keep that in mind going forward to ensure better clarity.
As we also highlighted in the story, the observations from the MoSPI data differ quite a bit from the findings in the HCES that made headlines in September.
Why the discrepancies? There are a few possible reasons—differences in definitions, methodologies, or even how the data is approached. For instance, something as fundamental as how a “household” is defined or how expenses are calculated can vary significantly.
We always appreciate sharp observations like yours—keeps the conversation around data lively and meaningful!
Thank you for the quick and detailed response. This serious and professional approach is exactly what I admire about this initiative. Keep up the great work!
Thanks for sharing very well analysed articles on daily basis. On 1st article on Indian consumption, I would like to suggest to take few more variables in your analysis such as CPI and WPI as these also affect consumption pattern.