Using the results of qualitative surveys in quantitative analysis

Enrico D’Elia
Additional contact information
Enrico D’Elia: ISAE - Institute for Studies and Economic Analyses
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Enrico D'Elia

No 56, ISAE Working Papers from ISTAT - Italian National Institute of Statistics - (Rome, ITALY)

Abstract: The answers to qualitative questions put to economic operators can be integrated in standard macro-economic analysis by using a “quantification” procedure chosen among the probabilistic approach, the regression methods or the latent factor approach. The first one is the most commonly used. It is based on the assumption that the respondents reply that the value of the reference variable x can be described by a certain statement (e.g.: x stays stable) if it lies between two known thresholds (e.g.: ±5% around its initial value). A number of quantified indicators may be derived by assuming a special functional form for the frequency distribution of opinions and expectations of respondents about x. According to the regression approach, the respondents attach to each qualitative answer a reference value of x, which can be estimated by regressing an available quantitative measure of x against the time series (or longitudinal samples) of percentages of people who gave eac! h qualitative answer. Finally, one can assume that every percentage of answers is driven by a single common “latent factor”, which can be estimated by applying to the percentages of answers the standard tools of multivariate statistics. All of the three approaches include as a special case the “balance statistic”, adopted very often in empirical analyses. Both the theoretical analysis and the empirical evidence on the relative merits of various methods are mixed. In general, no single quantification technique clearly outperforms the others, at least in preliminary analysis. However, when the quantified indicators must be included as explanatory variables in standard econometric models, the regression approach seems the most suitable and natural one. On its turn, the latent factor approach provides a profitable alternative to the regression method in exploratory analyses and when multicollinearity and degrees of freedom of estimates become severe constraints.

Keywords: Expectations; Latent factors; Qualitative surveys; Quantification methods; Short term indicators (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C16 C35 C82 E32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2005-09
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://lipari.istat.it/digibib/Working_Papers/WP_56_2005_DElia.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

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:isa:wpaper:56

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ISAE Working Papers from ISTAT - Italian National Institute of Statistics - (Rome, ITALY) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Stefania Rossetti ().