for a house or flat.’ The survey did include a question on imputed rents, and values on imputed rents were recorded for nearly all households. But there is very little information on how the rents were imputed. Given that the housing rental market is virtually nonexistent (with only 7 households actually reporting paying rents), the data on imputed rents did not appear to be very reliable.® One could possibly have estimated a hedonic rental model based on imputed rents, but even that was precluded by the lack of information in the LECS on dwelling characteristics. Hence, we decided to exciude rents from our measure of consumption. 4. Economic growth in Lao PDR Although economic growth in Lao PDR has not been as spectacular as in some of the East Asian economies, as such the Lao economy experienced strong growth in the 1990s until the onset of the economic crisis. Per capita real GDP grew rapidly at an annual rate of 4.6 percent between 1992-93 and 1997-98 (Table 1). Table 1: Per capita real GDP and its growth 1992-03 1997-98 os Value in kip Percentage Value inkip Percentage Annual per year Shares. __per year Shares __ Growth rate ‘Agrcutre 90,733 S77 103,005 21 25 Industy 25,376 168 41479 210 94 Services 37.708 240 49417 250 54 or 157,203 1000 197,552 1000 46 Table 1 also illustrates the changing structure of the Lao economy. The agricultural sector has been growing at an annual rate of 2.5 percent, whereas the growth rates in the industrial and services sectors have been 9.1 and 5.4 percent respectively. ‘This has resulted in a decline in the share of agricultural sector in GDP from 58 percent in 1992-93 to 52 percent in 1997-98. Despite this ongoing structural transformation, © Our discussions with the NSC staff also reinforced this view.