Understanding Economic Behavior Using Open-Ended Survey Data

Ingar Haaland (), Christopher Roth (), Stefanie Stantcheva () and Johannes Wohlfart ()
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Ingar Haaland: NHH Norwegian School of Economics, FAIR & CEPR
Christopher Roth: University of Cologne, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, CEPR & NHH Norwegian School of Economics
Stefanie Stantcheva: Harvard University, NBER & CEPR
Johannes Wohlfart: University of Cologne, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, CEBI & CESifo

No 362, ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series from University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany

Abstract: We survey the recent literature in economics using open-ended survey data to uncover mechanisms behind economic beliefs and behaviors. We first provide an overview of different applications, including the measurement of motives, mental models, narratives, attention, information transmission, and recall. We next describe different ways of eliciting open-ended responses, including single-item open-ended questions, speech recordings, and AI-powered qualitative interviews. Subsequently, we discuss methods to annotate and analyze such data with a focus on recent advances in large language models. Our review concludes with a discussion of promising avenues for future research.

Keywords: Open-ended Questions; Text Data; Methodology; Surveys; Large Language Models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 D83 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 66 pages
Date: 2025-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ain
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:362

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