Mode Preferences in Business Surveys: Evidence from Germany

Christian Seiler

No 193, ifo Working Paper Series from ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich

Abstract: With the world-wide spread of the internet in the 1990s, the conduction of web or e-mail surveys became popular in research. Although these surveys provide fast data collection and reduced costs, results may suffer from biases due to the survey mode. While a variety of studies concerning mode effects in household or individual surveys exists, only less is known in case of business surveys. To give a contribution to this topic, we analyse a large German business survey – the Ifo Business Survey – which is answered by about 7,000 respondents each month since 1949. In this paper, we focus on three different aspects with respect to the survey mode: data quality, respondents' profiles and response behavior. Our results show that e-mail or web surveys reduce nonresponse and are more likely used by larger firms which operate in technology-related business areas.

JEL-codes: C81 C83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ifowps:_193

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