IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/wbecrv/v34y2020i2p418-443..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Call Me Maybe: Experimental Evidence on Frequency and Medium Effects in Microenterprise Surveys

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Garlick
  • Kate Orkin
  • Simon Quinn

Abstract

This study analyzes the effects of differences in survey frequency and medium on microenterprise survey data. A sample of enterprises were randomly assigned to monthly in-person, weekly in-person, or weekly phone surveys for a 12-week panel. The results show few differences across the groups in measured means, distributions, and deviations of measured data from an objective data-quality standard provided by Benford’s Law. However, phone interviews generated higher within-enterprise variation through time in several variables and may be more sensitive to social desirability bias. Higher-frequency interviews did not lead to persistent changes in reporting or increase permanent attrition from the panel but did increase the share of missed interviews. These findings show that collecting high-frequency survey data by phone does not substantially affect data quality. However, researchers who are particularly interested in within-enterprise dynamics should exercise caution when choosing survey medium.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Garlick & Kate Orkin & Simon Quinn, 2020. "Call Me Maybe: Experimental Evidence on Frequency and Medium Effects in Microenterprise Surveys," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 34(2), pages 418-443.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:wbecrv:v:34:y:2020:i:2:p:418-443.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/wber/lhz021
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wang, Delu & Chen, Fan & Mao, Jinqi & Liu, Nannan & Rong, Fangyu, 2022. "Are the official national data credible? Empirical evidence from statistics quality evaluation of China's coal and its downstream industries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    2. Fiala, Nathan & Rose, Julian & Aryemo, Filder & Peters, Jörg, 2022. "The (very) long-run impacts of cash grants during a crisis," Ruhr Economic Papers 961, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    3. Anderson, Ellen & Lybbert, Travis J. & Shenoy, Ashish & Singh, Rupika & Stein, Daniel, 2024. "Does survey mode matter? Comparing in-person and phone agricultural surveys in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    4. Ambler, Kate & Herskowitz, Sylvan & Maredia, Mywish K., 2021. "Rural Labor and Long Recall Loss," Staff Paper Series 316616, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    5. Crawfurd, Lee & Evans, David K. & Hares, Susannah & Sandefur, Justin, 2023. "Live tutoring calls did not improve learning during the COVID-19 pandemic in Sierra Leone," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    6. Andrea Kiss & Robert Garlick & Kate Orkin & Luke Hensel, 2023. "Jobseekers’ Beliefs about Comparative Advantage and (Mis)Directed Search," Upjohn Working Papers 23-388, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    7. Abate, Gashaw T. & de Brauw, Alan & Hirvonen, Kalle & Wolle, Abdulazize, 2023. "Measuring consumption over the phone: Evidence from a survey experiment in urban Ethiopia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    8. Laurel Wheeler & Robert Garlick & Eric Johnson & Patrick Shaw & Marissa Gargano, 2022. "LinkedIn(to) Job Opportunities: Experimental Evidence from Job Readiness Training," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 101-125, April.
    9. Fiala, Nathan & Masselus, Lise, 2022. "Whom to ask? Testing respondent effects in household surveys," Ruhr Economic Papers 935, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    10. Kalaj, Jozefina & Rogger, Daniel & Somani, Ravi, 2022. "Bureaucrat time-use: Evidence from a survey experiment," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    11. Elena Serfilippi & Daniele Giovannucci & David Ameyaw & Ankur Bansal & Thomas Asafua Nketsia Wobill & Roberta Blankson & Rashi Mishra, 2022. "Benefits and Challenges of Making Data More Agile: A Review of Recent Key Approaches in Agriculture," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-18, December.
    12. Sofia Amaral & Lelys Dinarte-Diaz & Patricio Dominguez & Steffanny Romero & Santiago M. Perez-Vincent, 2022. "Talk or Text? Evaluating Response Rates by Remote Survey Method during Covid-19," CESifo Working Paper Series 9517, CESifo.
    13. Beam, Emily A., 2023. "Social media as a recruitment and data collection tool: Experimental evidence on the relative effectiveness of web surveys and chatbots," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    14. Bensch, Gunther & Kluve, Jochen & Stöterau, Jonathan, 2021. "The market-based dissemination of energy-access technologies as a business model for rural entrepreneurs: Evidence from Kenya," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    15. Masselus, Lise & Fiala, Nathan, 2024. "Whom to ask? Testing respondent effects in household surveys," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    survey methodology; microenterprises;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:wbecrv:v:34:y:2020:i:2:p:418-443.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wrldbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.