Adjusting for Scale-Use Heterogeneity in Self-Reported Well-Being

Daniel Benjamin, Kristen Cooper, Ori Heffetz, Miles Kimball and Jiannan Zhou

No 31728, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Analyses of self-reported-well-being (SWB) survey data may be confounded if people use response scales differently. We use calibration questions, designed to have the same objective answer across respondents, to measure dimensional (i.e., specific to an SWB dimension) and general (i.e., common across questions) scale-use heterogeneity. In a sample of ~3,350 MTurkers, we find substantial such heterogeneity that is correlated with demographics. We develop a theoretical framework and econometric approaches to quantify and adjust for this heterogeneity. We apply our new estimators in several standard SWB applications. Adjusting for general-scale-use heterogeneity changes results in some cases.

JEL-codes: C83 D60 D63 D90 D91 I14 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ecm, nep-ger and nep-hap
Note: AG EH LS PE
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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