Can Survey Participation Alter Household Saving Behavior?

Joachim Winter (), Thomas Crossley (), Jochem de Bresser and Liam Delaney

VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy from Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association

Abstract: Much empirical research in economics is based on data from household surveys. Panel surveys are particularly valuable for understanding dynamics and heterogeneity. A possible concern with panel surveys is that survey participation itself may alter subsequent behavior. We provide novel evidence of survey effects on household financial behavior in a developed country. We exploit randomized assignment to survey modules within the LISS-panel, an internet panel survey which is representative of the Dutch population. Our saving measure is based on linked administrative wealth data, allowing us to distinguish changes in saving behavior from changes in reporting behavior. We find that households that respond to detailed questions on expenditures and needs in retirement reduced their non-housing saving rate by 3 percentage points. The size of the effect is increasing in the education level of the household. One interpretation is that the survey acted as a salience shock.

JEL-codes: C81 C83 D14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/100379/1/VfS_2014_pid_940.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Can Survey Participation Alter Household Saving Behaviour? (2017)
Working Paper: Can survey participation alter household saving behaviour? (2017)
Working Paper: Can survey participation alter household saving behavior? (2014)
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:zbw:vfsc14:100379

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy from Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().