 Respondent biases in agricultural household surveysAndrew Dillon and Edouard Mensah Journal of Development Economics, 2024, vol. 166, issue C Abstract: Two sources of respondent bias introduce measurement error into household statistics: asymmetric information between the proxy respondent and the individual on whom they report; and aggregation bias when a proxy respondent reports on a household-level outcome across multiple individuals. We estimate the effects of respondent biases in a survey experiment in Burkina Faso by varying who reports on the agricultural production of household members. We find respondent biases are not solely attributable to asymmetric information. Choosing a household head proxy lowers aggregation biases, but results in both over and under-estimates of agricultural variables relative to random proxies. Random proxies systematically under report agricultural statistics. Self-reporting protocols increase enumerator work days by only 5% indicating a high bias-cost tradeoff in choosing proxy response over self-reports. Survey designers should weight whether proxy bias magnitude or direction of bias are more significant threats to parameter estimation when determining their proxy response protocol. Keywords: Household survey; Measurement; Gender; Production surveys (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:166:y:2024:i:c:s0304387823001542 DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2023.103198 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Development Economics is currently edited by M. R. Rosenzweig More articles in Journal of Development Economics from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.