Using an experimental design, we compare two alternative approaches to dependent interviewing (proactive and reactive) with traditional independent interviewing on a module of questions about sources of income. We believe this to be the first large-scale quantitative comparison of proactive and reactive dependent interviewing. The three approaches to questioning are compared in terms of their impact on under-reporting of income sources and related bivariate statistics. The study design also enables identification of the characteristics of respondents whose responses are sensitive to the mode of interviewing. We conclude that under-reporting can be significantly greater with independent interviewing than with either form of dependent interviewing, especially for income sources that are relatively common or relatively easy to forget. We find that dependent interviewing is particularly helpful as a recall aid for respondents below retirement age and registered disabled persons.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research in its series Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin with number
487.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Bibliothek).
Related research
Keywords:
Other versions of this item:
Paper
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)
Did you know? You can include your works in the database easily by uploading them on the Munich Personal RePEc Archive (MPRA) if you do not have access to an institutional RePEc archive.