What Leads to Measurement Errors? Evidence from Reports of Program Participation in Three Surveys

Pablo Celhay, Bruce D. Meyer (bdmeyer@uchicago.edu) and Nikolas Mittag (nikolasmittag@posteo.de)
Additional contact information
Bruce D. Meyer: University of Chicago
Nikolas Mittag: CERGE-EI

No 14995, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Measurement errors are often a large source of bias in survey data. Lack of knowledge of the determinants of such errors makes it difficult for data producers to reduce the extent of errors and for data users to assess the validity of analyses using the data. We study the determinants of reporting error using high quality administrative data on government transfers linked to three major U.S. surveys. Our results support several theories of misreporting: Errors are related to event recall, forward and backward telescoping, salience of receipt, the stigma of reporting participation in welfare programs and respondent's degree of cooperation with the survey overall. We provide evidence on how survey design choices affect reporting errors. Our findings help survey users to gauge the reliability of their data and to devise estimation strategies that can correct for systematic errors, such as instrumental variable approaches. Understanding survey errors allows survey producers to reduce them by improving survey design. Our results indicate that survey producers should take into account that higher response rates as well as collecting more detailed information may have negative effects on survey accuracy.

Keywords: measurement error; welfare programs; survey methods; validation; misreporting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C18 H53 I3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2022-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published - published in: Journal of Econometrics, 2024, 238 (2), 105581

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Working Paper: What Leads to Measurement Errors? Evidence from Reports of Program Participation in Three Surveys (2022)
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