This paper presents a method that was employed in order to make the available fourteen household income survey data sets compatible with the data in the GTAP version 5 database. The first step of the method was the imputation of the unobservable returns to GTAP factors from the reported data. The second step was the reconciliation of the two data sets
so that their joint totals would be identical.
The paper does not claim to be the final word on either data imputation or reconciliation; instead it works through the various issues encountered in the process, proposes solutions to them and leaves it to the reader to judge the validity of this methodology.