Imputing consumption from income and wealth information

We investigate the feasibility of deriving a measure of total expenditure at the household level from administrative micro-data on income and wealth. We use Danish administrative data that provides measures of disposable income and the holding of different assets at the end of the year. The ability to link the households in the 1994-6 Danish Expenditure Survey to their administrative data for the years around the survey year offers a unique possibility for constructing a measure of total expenditure and of checking directly on the reliability of the imputation. The results are promising.