After the crazy financial environment of the last year, consumer finance (or household financial usage) surveys appear to be increasing in popularity or frequency.  The Federal Reserve Board of Governors made a really astute decision to refield their popular Survey of Consumer Finance, last done in 2007, but not to implement a new 2009 cohort but rather to go back to their respondents from 2007 and collected panel data on the finances of these households.  And apparently, they have added in some logic to their questionnaire such that if a respondent was a business owner in 2007 but not in 2009 they will ask what happened to that business.  This holds great potential in studing entrepreneurial households.  Unfortunately, the sample sizes here are so small that it the utility of the data could be limited depending on incidence rates.

Additionally, the World Bank is considering some expanded work in this area that if approved could be quite exciting.  Also from the World Bank, a recent paper highlights some methodological issues about collecting data on financial service usage: