approach could then be supplemented with sensitivity analysis for robustness of key results to departures from the per capita assumption. Turing to the measurement of consumption itself, the definition of household consumption ought to be as comprehensive as possible within the limits of available data. Given the nature of data available from LECS I and LECS II, consumption was defined using the following conventions. To begin with, household consumption is defined as the sum of food and non-food consumption, where both food and nonfood consumption include cash as well as i id value of items consumed during the month preceding the date of interview. The in-kind component also includes the value of consumption out of ‘own production. Amongst food items, rice being the most important staple for the Laotians, we, therefore, paid special attention to any missing rice consumption. In LECS I and Il, there ‘were 57 and 252 households, respectively, who reported zero rice consumption. Given the importance of rice in the daily diet of the Laotians, we treated the reported instances of zero rice consumption over a monthly reference period as erroneous. In the case of LECS II, we were able to use quantity data on daily rice intake for individual members that were recorded separately in the nutrition and fertility section of the questionnaire. ‘Supplementing this with data on rice prices during March 1997-February 1998 from the NSO, * we were able to estimate values of rice consumption for the 252 households reporting zero rice consumption in LECS II. However, no similar rice intake information was available for LECS I. As a result, we opted to exclude the concerned 57 households from the analysis for 1992-93. Nonfood consumption includes consumption of all nonfood items, except for purchases of some relatively lumpy and expensive durable goods over the last 12 months (see Table 4-1 in Appendix 1). Fora limited range of relatively low-end durable goods, however, we did use the annual purchase data to derive monthly expenditure equivalents. Our treatment of the use value of durable goods is discussed more fully in Appendix 1. ‘We also opted to exclude rents (including imputed rents) from non-food consumption. Only 7 of the 8882 sample households in LECS II reported paying any rent § We used average monthly rice prices separately for Vientiane, and the north, south and central regions. For a definition of these regions, see below.