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Income Measures in Cross-National Surveys: Problems and Solutions

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  • Donnelly, Michael J
  • Pop-Eleches, Grigore

Abstract

Comparable household income measures are crucial for most social science analyses of cross-national public opinion survey data. However, income questions in many cross-national surveys suffer from comparability and interpretability limitations that have not been adequately addressed by the existing literature. In this article, we examine the income measure in one major survey, the World Values Survey (WVS), arguing that a variety of problems arise when drawing inferences—descriptive or causal, individual or aggregate—using the standard ten-category measure. We then propose and implement a number of corrections to these potential biases and present a series of diagnostics that confirm the importance of our proposed corrections. We conclude by documenting some of the same challenges in the income measures used in other cross-national surveys. The accompanying data set can be merged with the WVS to make better use of the income measure.

Suggested Citation

  • Donnelly, Michael J & Pop-Eleches, Grigore, 2018. "Income Measures in Cross-National Surveys: Problems and Solutions," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(2), pages 355-363, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:pscirm:v:6:y:2018:i:02:p:355-363_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Rainer Franz Kotschy & Uwe Sunde, 2022. "Does Demography Determine Democratic Attitudes?," CESifo Working Paper Series 9535, CESifo.
    2. Nolan, Brian & Weisstanner, David, 2021. "Rising Income Inequality and Subjective Social Status: The Nuanced Relative Status Decline of the Working Class since the 1980s," INET Oxford Working Papers 2021-09, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    3. Olivier Jacques & David Weisstanner, 2022. "The Micro-Foundations of Permanent Austerity: Income Stagnation and the Decline of Taxability in Advanced Democracies," LIS Working papers 839, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    4. Michail Papazoglou & Ioannis Galariotis, 2020. "Revisiting the Effect of Income on Health in Europe: Evidence from the 8th Round of the European Social Survey," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 148(1), pages 281-296, February.
    5. David Weisstanner, 2020. "Income Growth and Preferences for Redistribution: The Role of Absolute and Relative Economic Experiences," LIS Working papers 782, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.

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