IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/32421.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Measuring What is Top of Mind

Author

Listed:
  • Ingar K. Haaland
  • Christopher Roth
  • Stefanie Stantcheva
  • Johannes Wohlfart

Abstract

We survey the recent literature in economics measuring what is on top of people's minds using open-ended questions. We first provide an overview of studies in political economy, macroeconomics, finance, labor economics, and behavioral economics that have employed such measurement. We next describe different ways of measuring the considerations that are on top of people's minds. We also provide an overview of methods to annotate and analyze such data. Next, we discuss different types of applications, including the measurement of motives, mental models, narratives, attention, information transmission, and recall. Our review highlights the potential of using open-ended questions to gain a deeper understanding of mechanisms underlying observed choices and expectations.

Suggested Citation

  • Ingar K. Haaland & Christopher Roth & Stefanie Stantcheva & Johannes Wohlfart, 2024. "Measuring What is Top of Mind," NBER Working Papers 32421, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32421
    Note: DEV EFG LS ME PE POL
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w32421.pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leonardo Bursztyn & Ingar Haaland & Aakaash Rao & Christopher Roth, 2020. "Disguising Prejudice: Popular Rationales as Excuses for Intolerant Expression," Working Papers 2020-73, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    2. Romero, Mauricio & Bedoya, Juan & Yanez-Pagans, Monica & Silveyra, Marcela & de Hoyos, Rafael, 2022. "Direct vs indirect management training: Experimental evidence from schools in Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    3. Anselm Hager & Lukas Hensel & Johannes Hermle & Christopher Roth, 2023. "Political Activists as Free Riders: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(653), pages 2068-2084.
    4. Michael Bailey & Eduardo Dávila & Theresa Kuchler & Johannes Stroebel, 2019. "House Price Beliefs And Mortgage Leverage Choice," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(6), pages 2403-2452.
    5. Peter Andrebriq & Carlo Pizzinelli & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2022. "Subjective Models of the Macroeconomy: Evidence From Experts and Representative Samples," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(6), pages 2958-2991.
    6. Akerlof, George A. & Snower, Dennis J., 2016. "Bread and bullets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 126(PB), pages 58-71.
    7. Peter Andre & Philipp Schirmer & Johannes Wohlfart, 2023. "Mental Models of the Stock Market," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 259, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    8. Valentin Lang & Stephan A. Schneider, 2023. "Immigration and Nationalism in the Long Run," CESifo Working Paper Series 10621, CESifo.
    9. Dechezleprêtre, Antoine & Fabre, Adrien & Kruse, Tobias & Planterose, Bluebery & Chico, Ana Sanchez & Stantcheva, Stefanie, 2022. "Fighting Climate Change: International Attitudes Toward Climate Policies," CEPR Discussion Papers 17602, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Felix Chopra & Ingar Haaland, 2023. "Conducting qualitative interviews with AI," CEBI working paper series 23-06, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).
    11. Pedro Bordalo & John J. Conlon & Nicola Gennaioli & Spencer Yongwook Kwon & Andrei Shleifer, 2023. "How People Use Statistics," NBER Working Papers 31631, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
      • Pedro Bordalo & John Conlon & Nicola Gennaioli & Spencer Kwon & Andrei Shleifer, 2023. "How People Use Statistics," Working Papers 699, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    12. Lilith Burgstaller & Annabelle Doerr & Sarah Necker, 2023. "Do Household Tax Credits Increase the Demand for Legally Provided Services?," CESifo Working Paper Series 10211, CESifo.
    13. Johannes Abeler & David Huffman & Collin Raymond & David B. Huffman, 2023. "Incentive Complexity, Bounded Rationality and Effort Provision," CESifo Working Paper Series 10541, CESifo.
    14. Kahneman, Daniel & Knetsch, Jack L & Thaler, Richard, 1986. "Fairness as a Constraint on Profit Seeking: Entitlements in the Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 728-741, September.
    15. Suanna Oh, 2023. "Does Identity Affect Labor Supply?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(8), pages 2055-2083, August.
    16. Bustos, Sebastian & Pomeranz, Dina & Suárez Serrato, Juan Carlos & Vila-Belda, José & Zucman, Gabriel, 2022. "The Race Between Tax Enforcement and Tax Planning: Evidence From a Natural Experiment in Chile," CEPR Discussion Papers 17347, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Leonardo Bursztyn & Benjamin R. Handel & Rafael Jimenez & Christopher Roth, 2023. "When Product Markets Become Collective Traps: The Case of Social Media," NBER Working Papers 31771, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Jonathan de Quidt & Johannes Haushofer & Christopher Roth, 2018. "Measuring and Bounding Experimenter Demand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(11), pages 3266-3302, November.
    19. Abeler, Johannes & Huffman, David B. & Raymond, Collin, 2023. "Incentive Complexity, Bounded Rationality and Effort Provision," IZA Discussion Papers 16284, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Dani Rodrik & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2021. "A Policy Matrix for Inclusive Prosperity," NBER Working Papers 28736, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Peter Andre & Philipp Schirmer & Johannes Wohlfart, 2023. "Mental Models of the Stock Market," CESifo Working Paper Series 10691, CESifo.
    22. Supreet Kaur & Sendhil Mullainathan & Suanna Oh & Frank Schilbach, 2021. "Do Financial Concerns Make Workers Less Productive?," Working Papers 2021-07, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    23. Leiser, David & Drori, Shelly, 2005. "NaIve understanding of inflation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 179-198, March.
    24. Leonardo Bursztyn, 2023. "When Product Markets Become Collective Traps: The Case of Social Media," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 260, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    25. Daniel Zizzo, 2010. "Experimenter demand effects in economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 13(1), pages 75-98, March.
    26. Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Andrew A. Samwick, 2018. "The Welfare Cost of Perceived Policy Uncertainty: Evidence from Social Security," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(2), pages 275-307, February.
    27. Tobias Wekhof & Sébastien Houde, 2023. "Using narratives to infer preferences in understanding the energy efficiency gap," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 8(9), pages 965-977, September.
    28. Akerlof, George A. & Snower, Dennis J., 2016. "Bread and bullets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 126(PB), pages 58-71.
    29. Simon Gachter & Ernst Fehr, 2000. "Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 980-994, September.
    30. Liscow, Zachary & Fox, Edward, 2022. "The psychology of taxing capital income: Evidence from a survey experiment on the realization rule," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    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. Bocar A. Ba & Abdoulaye Ndiaye & Roman G. Rivera & Alexander Whitefield, 2024. "Mispricing Narratives after Social Unrest," Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers 096, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    2. Bocar A. Ba & Abdoulaye Ndiaye & Roman G. Rivera & Alexander Whitefield, 2024. "Mispricing Narratives after Social Unrest," CESifo Working Paper Series 11264, CESifo.

    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. Peter Andre & Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Mirko Wiederholt & Johannes Wohlfart, 2021. "Narratives about the Macroeconomy," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 127, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    2. Andre, Peter & Haaland, Ingar & Roth, Christopher & Wiederholt, Mirko & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2024. "Narratives about the macroeconomy," SAFE Working Paper Series 426, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    3. Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2023. "Designing Information Provision Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 3-40, March.
    4. Eugen Dimant & Tobias Gesche, 2021. "Nudging Enforcers: How Norm Perceptions and Motives for Lying Shape Sanctions," CESifo Working Paper Series 9385, CESifo.
    5. Emeric Henry & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya & Sergei Guriev, 2022. "Checking and Sharing Alt-Facts," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 55-86, August.
    6. Christopher Roth & Sonja Settele & Johannes Wohlfart, 2022. "Risk Exposure and Acquisition of Macroeconomic Information," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 34-53, March.
    7. Riccardo Pedersini & Rosemarie Nagel & Marc Le Menestrel, 2019. "The Power of Requests in a Redistribution Game: An Experimental Study," Games, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-18, July.
    8. Bajzíková, Stanislava & Cingl, Lubomír, 2023. "Measuring stereotypes in effort tasks: A multiple-price list approach," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    9. Bocar A. Ba & Abdoulaye Ndiaye & Roman G. Rivera & Alexander Whitefield, 2024. "Mispricing Narratives after Social Unrest," CESifo Working Paper Series 11264, CESifo.
    10. Krause, Jan S. & Brandt, Gerrit & Schmidt, Ulrich & Schunk, Daniel, 2023. "Don’t sweat it: Ambient temperature does not affect social behavior and perception," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    11. Bocar A. Ba & Abdoulaye Ndiaye & Roman G. Rivera & Alexander Whitefield, 2024. "Mispricing Narratives after Social Unrest," Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers 096, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    12. Andre, Peter & Schirmer, Philipp & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2023. "Mental models of the stock market," SAFE Working Paper Series 406, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    13. Barron, Kai & Nurminen, Tuomas, 2018. "Nudging cooperation," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economics of Change SP II 2018-305, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    14. Johnson, Samuel G. B., 2019. "Toward a cognitive science of markets: Economic agents as sense-makers," Economics Discussion Papers 2019-10, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    15. Peter Andre & Philipp Schirmer & Johannes Wohlfart, 2023. "Mental Models of the Stock Market," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 259, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    16. Mengyuan Zhou, 2022. "Does the Source of Inheritance Matter in Bequest Attitudes? Evidence from Japan," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 43(4), pages 867-887, December.
    17. Christoph Engel & Michael Kurschilgen, 2011. "Fairness Ex Ante and Ex Post: Experimentally Testing Ex Post Judicial Intervention into Blockbuster Deals," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 8(4), pages 682-708, December.
    18. Mengyuan Zhou, 2019. "The Effect of the Source of Inheritance on Bequest Attitudes: Evidence from Japan," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series 2019-018, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.
    19. Schnorpfeil, Philip & Weber, Michael & Hackethal, Andreas, 2023. "Households' response to the wealth effects of inflation," SAFE Working Paper Series 400, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    20. Kessel, Dany & Mollerstrom, Johanna & van Veldhuizen, Roel, 2021. "Can simple advice eliminate the gender gap in willingness to compete?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 138, pages 1-1.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:32421. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.