Journal
EMPIRICAL ECONOMICS
Volume 30, Issue 2, Pages 521-538Publisher
PHYSICA-VERLAG GMBH & CO
DOI: 10.1007/s00181-005-0247-7
Keywords
item non-response; survey quality; interviewer effects; income and wealth
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This study investigates the mechanisms determining item nonresponse focusing on three issues: First, is there significant heterogeneity in item non-response across financial questions and in the association of covariates with item non-response across outcomes? Second, can the informational value of surveys be improved by matching interviewers and respondents based on their characteristics? Third, how does offering a don't know answer option affect respondent behavior? The questions are answered based on detailed survey and interviewer data from the German Socioeconomic Panel using a broad set of income and wealth outcomes. We find considerable heterogeneity in non-response across financial items, little explanatory power of interviewer-respondent matches and strong evidence that don't know answers result from mechanisms that differ from those yielding valid responses and outright refusals to respond.
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