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What did you really earn last year? Explaining measurement error in survey income data
[journal article]
Abstract The paper analyses the sources of income measurement error in surveys with a unique data set. We use the Austrian 2008-2011 waves of the European Union 'Statistics on income and living conditions' survey which provide individual information on wages, pensions and unemployment benefits from survey in... view more
The paper analyses the sources of income measurement error in surveys with a unique data set. We use the Austrian 2008-2011 waves of the European Union 'Statistics on income and living conditions' survey which provide individual information on wages, pensions and unemployment benefits from survey interviews and officially linked administrative records. Thus, we do not have to fall back on complex two-sample matching procedures like related studies. We empirically investigate four sources of measurement error, namely social desirability, sociodemographic characteristics of the respondent, the survey design and the presence of learning effects. We find strong evidence for a social desirability bias in income reporting, whereas the presence of learning effects is mixed and depends on the type of income under consideration. An Owen value decomposition reveals that social desirability is a major explanation of misreporting in wages and pensions, whereas sociodemographic characteristics are most relevant for mismatches in unemployment benefits.... view less
Keywords
income; measurement; error; response behavior; survey; data quality; data capture; data collection method; wage; pension; pension payments; unemployment compensation; social factors; demographic factors; social desirability; survey research
Classification
Methods and Techniques of Data Collection and Data Analysis, Statistical Methods, Computer Methods
Free Keywords
Income measurement error; Register data; Response error; Survey data; Survey error; Survey methods; European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) 2008-2011
Document language
English
Publication Year
2019
Page/Pages
p. 1411-1437
Journal
Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A (Statistics in Society), 182 (2019) 4
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/rssa.12463
ISSN
1467-985X
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed