Efficient survey sampling of households via Gaussian quadrature

The collection of data through surveys is a costly and time-consuming process, particularly when complex economic data are involved.The paper presents an efficient approach, based on Gaussian quadrature, to survey sampling when some information is available about the target population. Using household data from Mozambique, we demonstrate that Gaussian quadrature subsamples, based on relatively easy to observe household characteristics such as size and educational attainment of members, generate better estimates of the moments of household expenditure than random samples of equal size.