Luxembourg Consumption Study (LCS) Database – Beta Launch

1. Introduction and Motivation

After four decades of harmonising income microdata through the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) and two decades of harmonising wealth microdata through the Luxembourg Wealth Study (LWS), LIS is now establishing a third pillar of its data infrastructure: the Luxembourg Consumption Study (LCS). This initiative responds to a long-standing gap in comparative household research and is grounded in the landmark Stiglitz–Sen–Fitoussi Commission Report of 2009, which identified income, consumption, and wealth as three core, complementary dimensions of household economic well-being.

The Luxembourg Consumption Study (LCS) addresses this gap directly, aiming to produce a harmonised, cross-national micro-database of household consumption expenditure. It draws on household budget survey data from countries at all income levels, using a consistent framework broadly aligned with the international COICOP 2018 classification, while accounting for both monetary and non-monetary components of consumption.

2. The LCS Conceptual Schema: LCS vs. COICOP

The Schema Structure

* Components marked in grey fall outside the current LCS operational framework because they rely on modeling and simulation and cannot be constructed consistently from the available microdata.
¹ Monetary consumption expenditure include: purchased goods & services, durables with acquisition price, out-of-pocket expenses for health and education.
² Current transfers include: current taxes on income and wealth, other direct taxes, social contributions paid, interhousehold transfers (remittances, alimony payments, child support, etc.), interest payments on consumer loans, net insurance premiums, and donations and contributions to charitable organisations.
³ Capital transfers include: acquisition of financial or nonfinancial assets.
⁴ Non-monetary consumption expenditure include: value of own-produced goods & services (including owner-equivalent rent), in-kind payments from employers, in-kind benefits from the State, in-kind donations from private institutions, and gifts and in-kind transfers from other households.
⁵ In order to enhance cross-country comparability, the LCS consumption framework excludes out-of-pocket expenditures on education and health services (e.g., tutoring and fees for public and private schooling). This adjustment effectively normalizes differences in public provision across countries but, in doing so, abstracts from potentially substantial household expenditures that are directly linked to well-being and inequality.
⁶ Value of social transfers in kind (STiK), value of home-produced services (meals, childcare), and free goods and services are not readily available in the LCS data; they require researcher modelling.
⁷ Modeling the service flow of durables is not feasible for all countries in the LCS Database. The necessary information on durable ownership, purchase prices, and year of acquisition is available only for a subset of countries and, within those countries, only for selected durable items.

The schema contrasts four families of aggregates along two dimensions: the scope of what is included (from narrow monetary expenditure to extended consumption including non-monetary items and STiK) and the purpose served (expenditure accounting vs. welfare measurement).

LCS Aggregates

3. The LCS Variable List (June 2026)

The LCS variable list, consolidated in its June 2026 version, operationalises the conceptual schema into a concrete harmonisation template. It presents the two parallel measurement frameworks COICOP and LCS side by side, enabling users to work with either or both depending on their research purpose.

3.1 The Variable list is available here.

3.2 Structure of the Variable List

The variable list is organised into the following major sections:

• LCS Well-Being Measure – Breakdown by Source of Consumption: top-level aggregates hc_lcs (total), hc_p (purchased), hc_o (own-produced), hc_i (in-kind, with sub-sources), hc_m (unknown type), and hc_lcs_ext (extended, including durable flows where available).
• LCS Well-Being Measure – Breakdown by Major Category: food (hcfood), non-food non-housing non-durable (hcnfnd), housing (hchous), and durable flows (hc_dflow), each with source suffixes.
• LCS Well-Being Measure – Breakdown by Detailed Category: 2-digit COICOP-aligned categories for all non-durable consumption (hcalcto, hccloth, hcequip, hctrans, hcinco, hcrsc, hcrest, hcaccs, hcins, hcpers, hcsoc, hcmisc), each with _t/_p/_n suffixes.
• Consumption Flows from Durables: hf05–hf09 covering furniture and appliances, health assistive products, vehicles, ICT equipment, and recreational durables. Populated where national data permit.
• COICOP Expenditure Aggregates – Major Categories: hc_coicop and hc01–hc13 plus hc99 (miscellaneous consumption expenditure n.e.c.), including health (hc06) and education (hc10) and durables at acquisition price (hd05–hd13), each with _t/_p/_n suffixes.
• COICOP Expenditure – Detailed Categories: 2-digit sub-categories for all COICOP 2018 divisions.
• Durables Excluded from LCS Core – Acquisition Prices: hd05–hd13 (furniture, health assistive products, vehicles, ICT, recreation, jewellery), with _t/_p/_n suffixes.
• Non-Consumption Expenditure: taxes (hxitax, hxscont, hxotax and sub-items), voluntary contributions (hxvcont and sub-items), loans and mortgage installments (hxmort, hxloan), inter-household transfers (hxiht and sub-items), donations (hxdon), penalties / fines (hxopf), third party compensation paid (hxothird), major repairs and improvements to owned dwelling (xmrep), and extraordinary expenditure (xinfreq).
• Geography and Housing Characteristics: region, locality size, area type, dwelling type, tenure status (own), number of rooms, dwelling value, construction materials, utilities (water, electricity, sewage, heating), energy sources, and connectivity (internet, TV subscription).
• Subjective Well-Being and Economic Vulnerability: housing and consumption adequacy ratings, financial satisfaction and expectations, ability to save, exposure to unexpected expenses, poverty self-ranking, and exposure to shocks.
• Health Module: country-specific health variables.
• Material Deprivation and Life Satisfaction modules.

3.3 The Suffix Convention

A defining technical feature of the LCS variable list is its systematic use of suffixes to track the mode of acquisition across all consumption categories. The convention is consistent across both the LCS well-being measure and the COICOP aggregate:

LCS Suffix Convention

4. Country Coverage for the Beta Launch (June 2026)

The beta release will cover the countries listed in the table below. Country selection is guided by the principle of operational comparability, with priority given to completeness of main consumption categories, availability of scarce components (imputed rent, own consumption), and potential for integrated ICW analysis where the country is also present in LIS and LWS.

5. Documentation, Access, and Research Infrastructure

5.1 Metadata and Documentation Tools

The LCS will be fully integrated into two LIS documentation tools:

• METIS: the LIS online documentation platform, which provides comparability remarks, survey-level metadata, and variable definitions for all LIS and LWS datasets. LCS datasets will be incorporated with full documentation of reference periods, valuation methods, treatment of durables, imputed rent availability, and survey design characteristics.
• Compare.It: the LIS comparability explorer, enabling users to identify which countries and years are comparable on specific variables or concepts before conducting analysis.
• In addition, CPIs, PPPs, and spatial price indices will be provided in accompanying documentation pages, with direct linkage potential to the microdata through interview date and regional variables in the microdata.

5.2 Data Access

As with LIS and LWS, access to LCS microdata will be provided through the LISSY remote-access system, which enables researchers worldwide to run analyses on confidential microdata without accessing the underlying files. Secured access arrangements will also be available. The beta release ahead of the LIS-III Conference (February 2027 in London) will be available to all registered LISSY users.

6. Full LCS Technical Documentation and Research Framework

The full LCS technical document is available for download from here. The document includes full documentation of the LCS initiative including Research Motivation, Conceptual Background, and Methodological Choices.