 Anchoring bias in recall data: Evidence from Central AmericaSusan Godlonton, Manuel Hernandez and Mike Murphy No 1534, IFPRI discussion papers from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Abstract: Understanding the magnitude and source of measurement biases in self-reported data is critical to effective economic policy research. This paper examines the role of anchoring bias in self-reports of objective and subjective outcomes under recall. The research exploits a unique panel survey data set collected over a three-year period from four countries in Central America. It assesses whether respondents use their reported value of specific measures from the most recent survey period as a cognitive heuristic when recalling the value from a previous period, while controlling for the value they reported earlier. We find strong evidence of sizable anchoring bias in self-reported retrospective indicators for both objective measures (household and per capita income, wages, and hours spent on the household’s main activity) and subjective measures (reports of happiness, health, stress, and well-being). In general, we also observe a larger bias in response to negative changes for objective indicators and a larger bias in response to positive changes for subjective indicators. Keywords: microeconomics; capacity development; measurement; smallholders; methodology (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:fpr:ifprid:1534 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in IFPRI discussion papers from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Contact information at EDIRC. |
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