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Many of our seminars and public events this year will continue as in person or as hybrid (online and in person) events.

Please check our website listings and Twitter feed @STICERD_LSE for updates.

Unless otherwise specified, in-person seminars are open to the public. Please ensure you have informed the event contact as early as possible.

Those unable to join the seminars in-person are welcome to participate via zoom if the event is hybrid.

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About this event

Population censuses constitute the basis of public resource allocation and political representation in many countries. This paper shows that census forms commonly generate incentives for enumerators to disproportionately omit members of larger households. Using microdata from 254 censuses, we estimate that this leads to undercounting in 60% of censuses. Omission is concentrated in poor countries where 0.6% of the population is missing. Within countries, poor households are missing three times as many members as rich ones, leading to larger undercounts in poorer regions. We illustrate how this translates into systematic underfunding of public services and political underrepresentation in poor regions.