Errors in Reporting and Imputation of Government Benefits and Their Implications

Pablo Celhay, Bruce D. Meyer () and Nikolas Mittag ()
Additional contact information
Bruce D. Meyer: University of Chicago
Nikolas Mittag: CERGE-EI

No 14396, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We document the extent, nature, and consequences of survey errors for receipt of cash welfare and SNAP in three major U.S. household surveys linked to administrative program records. Our results confirm high rates of misreporting of program receipt, particularly failure to report receipt. The surveys inaccurately capture patterns of participation in multiple programs, even though there is little evidence of program confusion. Error rates are higher among imputed observations, which also account for a large share of false positive errors. Many household characteristics have significant effects on errors in reporting receipt, both false positives and false negatives. We find large differences in survey errors by race, ethnicity, income and other household characteristics. We provide evidence on the consequences of these errors for models of program receipt. Estimated effects of income and race are noticeably biased. We then examine error due to item non-response and imputation, as well as whether imputation improves estimates. Item non-respondents have higher receipt rates than the population, even conditional on many covariates. The assumptions for consistent estimates in multivariate models fail both when excluding item non-respondents and when using the imputed values. In binary choice models of program receipt, estimates from the linked data favor excluding item non-respondents rather than using their imputed values. The biases in each case are well predicted by the error patterns we document, so such analyses can help researchers make more informed decisions on the use of imputed values.

Keywords: linked survey data; measurement error; item non-response; imputation; program receipt (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C81 D31 I32 I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 67 pages
Date: 2021-05
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Working Paper: Errors in Reporting and Imputation of Government Benefits and Their Implications (2021)
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