IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mnh/spaper/2786.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Design effects in survey-based measures of household consumption

Author

Listed:
  • Winter, Joachim

Abstract

An important issue in designing survey questions on household consumption is the level of aggregation of expenditure categories. In this paper, I present experimental evidence on biases that are related to the choice of expenditure categories. Comparing responses to a 'one shot' question with responses to a more disaggregated design that comprises 35 expenditure categories reveals significant underreporting in the one-shot question. The same holds true when responses to one of these still relatively broad categories (food and beverages) are compared with measures from a budget survey that is based on a very detailed expenditure diary. There is also some evidence that these biases affect subsequent substantive economic analysis such as the estimation of Engel curves.

Suggested Citation

  • Winter, Joachim, 2002. "Design effects in survey-based measures of household consumption," Papers 02-34, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.
    • Handle: RePEc:mnh:spaper:2786
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://madoc.bib.uni-mannheim.de/2786/1/dp02_34.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Browning & Thomas F. Crossley & Guglielmo Weber, 2003. "Asking consumption questions in general purpose surveys," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(491), pages 540-567, November.
    2. Philipson, Tomas, 2001. "Data Markets, Missing Data, and Incentive Pay," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(4), pages 1099-1111, July.
    3. Winter, Joachim, 0000. "Bracketing effects in categorized survey questions and the measurement of economic quantities," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 02-35, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim;Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.
    4. Borsch-Supan, Axel & Reil-Held, Anette & Rodepeter, Ralf & Schnabel, Reinhold & Winter, Joachim, 2001. "The German Savings Puzzle," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 15-38, March.
    5. Jean Olson Lanjouw & Peter Lanjouw, 2001. "How to Compare Apples And Oranges: Poverty Measurement Based on Different Definitions of Consumption," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 47(1), pages 25-42, March.
    6. Menno Pradhan, 2001. "Welfare Analysis with a Proxy Consumption Measure – Evidence from a Repeated Experiment in Indonesia," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 01-092/2, Tinbergen Institute.
    7. Ziliak, James P., 1998. "Does the choice of consumption measure matter? An application to the permanent-income hypothesis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 201-216, February.
    8. Skinner, Jonathan, 1987. "A superior measure of consumption from the panel study of income dynamics," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 213-216.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Joachim Winter, 2004. "Response bias in survey-based measures of household consumption," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 3(9), pages 1-12.
    2. Erich Battistin, 2002. "Errors in Survey Reports of Consumption Expenditures," 10th International Conference on Panel Data, Berlin, July 5-6, 2002 C4-2, International Conferences on Panel Data.
    3. Erich Battistin & Mario Padula, 2016. "Survey instruments and the reports of consumption expenditures: evidence from the consumer expenditure surveys," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 179(2), pages 559-581, February.
    4. Toepoel, V. & Vis, C.M. & Das, J.W.M. & van Soest, A.H.O., 2006. "Design of Web Questionnaires : An Information Processing Perspective for the Effect of Response Categories," Other publications TiSEM bb20f0d3-5f5d-46b3-92f4-2, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    5. Roopali Goyanka & Charu C. Garg & Sheela Prasad, 2019. "Impoverishment Due to Out-of-pocket Health Expenditures: Measurement and Comparison Across Different Surveys in India," Indian Journal of Human Development, , vol. 13(2), pages 121-134, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:3:y:2004:i:9:p:1-12 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Thomas F. Crossley & Joachim K. Winter, 2014. "Asking Households about Expenditures: What Have We Learned?," NBER Chapters, in: Improving the Measurement of Consumer Expenditures, pages 23-50, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Joachim Winter, 2004. "Response bias in survey-based measures of household consumption," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 3(9), pages 1-12.
    4. Thomas F. Crossley & Peter Levell & Stavros Poupakis, 2022. "Regression with an imputed dependent variable," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(7), pages 1277-1294, November.
    5. Martin Browning & Thomas Crossley, 2009. "Are Two Cheap, Noisy Measures Better Than One Expensive, Accurate One?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 99-103, May.
    6. Luisa Natali & Marta Moratti, 2012. "Measuring Household Welfare: Short versus long consumption modules," Papers inwopa671, Innocenti Working Papers.
    7. Martin Browning & Thomas F. Crossley & Guglielmo Weber, 2003. "Asking consumption questions in general purpose surveys," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(491), pages 540-567, November.
    8. Antoine Bozio & Guy Laroque & Cormac O’Dea, 2017. "Discount rate heterogeneity among older households: a puzzle?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 647-680, April.
    9. Thomas J. Kniesner & James P. Ziliak, 2002. "Tax Reform and Automatic Stabilization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(3), pages 590-612, June.
    10. Lothar Essig & Joachim K. Winter, 2009. "Item Non-Response to Financial Questions in Household Surveys: An Experimental Study of Interviewer and Mode Effects," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 30(Special I), pages 367-390, December.
    11. Hoderlein, Stefan & Winter, Joachim, 2010. "Structural measurement errors in nonseparable models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 157(2), pages 432-440, August.
    12. Lamarche, Pierre, 2017. "Estimating consumption in the HFCS: Experimental results on the first wave of the HFCS," Statistics Paper Series 22, European Central Bank.
    13. Estelle Dauchy & Francisco Navarro-Sanchez & Nathan Seegert, 2021. "Taxation and Inequality: Active and Passive Channels," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 42, pages 156-177, October.
    14. José Casado, 2011. "From income to consumption: measuring households partial insurance," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 471-495, April.
    15. Etheridge, Ben, 2015. "A test of the household income process using consumption and wealth data," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 129-157.
    16. Bertrand Garbinti & Pierre Lamarche, 2014. "Les hauts revenus épargnent‑ils davantage ?," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 472(1), pages 49-64.
    17. Martin Browning & Thomas F. Crossley & Joachim Winter, 2014. "The Measurement of Household Consumption Expenditures," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 475-501, August.
    18. Pierre Lamarche, 2015. "Can your stomach predict your total consumption?," IFC Bulletins chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Indicators to support monetary and financial stability analysis: data sources and statistical methodologies, volume 39, Bank for International Settlements.
    19. Guo, Sheng, 2010. "The superior measure of PSID consumption: An update," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 108(3), pages 253-256, September.
    20. Winter, Joachim, 0000. "Bracketing effects in categorized survey questions and the measurement of economic quantities," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 02-35, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim;Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.
    21. Buchinsky, Moshe & Li, Fanghua & Liao, Zhipeng, 2022. "Estimation and inference of semiparametric models using data from several sources," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 226(1), pages 80-103.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    survey methodology ; consumption;

    JEL classification:

    • C81 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data; Data Access

    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:mnh:spaper:2786. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Katharina Rautenberg (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfmande.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.