Testing biasedness of self-reported microbusiness innovation in the annual business survey
Luyi Han,
Zheng Tian,
Timothy Wojan and
Stephan J Goetz
PLOS ONE, 2024, vol. 19, issue 1, 1-19
Abstract:
This study tests for potential bias in self-reported innovation due to the inclusion of a research and development (R&D) module that only microbusinesses (less than 10 employees) receive in the Annual Business Survey (ABS). Previous research found that respondents to combined innovation/R&D surveys reported innovation at lower rates than respondents to innovation-only surveys. A regression discontinuity design is used to test whether microbusinesses, which constitute a significant portion of U.S. firms with employees, are less likely to report innovation compared to other small businesses. In the vicinity of the 10-employee threshold, the study does not detect statistically significant biases for new-to-market and new-to-business product innovation. Statistical power analysis confirms the nonexistence of biases with a high power. Comparing the survey design of ABS to earlier combined innovation/R&D surveys provides valuable insights for the proposed integration of multiple Federal surveys into a single enterprise platform survey. The findings also have important implications for the accuracy and reliability of innovation data used as an input to policymaking and business development strategies in the United States.
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0296667 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.13 ... 96667&type=printable (application/pdf)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0296667
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0296667
Access Statistics for this article
More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().