IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/19543.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Asking Households About Expenditures: What Have We Learned?

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas F. Crossley
  • Joachim K. Winter

Abstract

When designing household surveys, including surveys that measure consumption expenditure, numerous choices need to be made. Which survey mode should be used? Do recall questions or diaries provide more reliable expenditure data? How should the concept of a household be defined? How should the length of the recall period, the level of aggregation of expenditure items, and the response format be chosen? How are responses affected by incentives? Can computer-assisted surveys be used to reduce or correct response error in real time? In this paper, we provide a selective review of the literature on these questions. We also suggest some promising directions for future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas F. Crossley & Joachim K. Winter, 2013. "Asking Households About Expenditures: What Have We Learned?," NBER Working Papers 19543, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19543
    Note: PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w19543.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Comerford & Liam Delaney & Colm Harmon, 2009. "Experimental Tests of Survey Responses to Expenditure Questions," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 30(Special I), pages 419-433, December.
    2. 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.
    3. Christopher R. Bollinger & Martin H. David, 2005. "I didn't tell, and I won't tell: dynamic response error in the SIPP," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(4), pages 563-569, May.
    4. Michael Hurd & Susann Rohwedder, 2009. "Methodological Innovations in Collecting Spending Data: The HRS Consumption and Activities Mail Survey," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 30(Special I), pages 435-459, December.
    5. John Micklewright & Sylke V. Schnepf, 2010. "How reliable are income data collected with a single question?," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 173(2), pages 409-429, April.
    6. Pudney, Stephen, 2008. "Heaping and leaping: survey response behaviour and the dynamics of self-reported consumption expenditure," ISER Working Paper Series 2008-09, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    7. 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.
    8. Charles F. Manski & Elie Tamer, 2002. "Inference on Regressions with Interval Data on a Regressor or Outcome," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 519-546, March.
    9. Erich Battistin & Raffaele Miniaci & Guglielmo Weber, 2003. "What Do We Learn from Recall Consumption Data?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 38(2).
    10. Philipson, Tomas, 2001. "Data Markets, Missing Data, and Incentive Pay," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(4), pages 1099-1111, July.
    11. 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.
    12. Matthew Brzozowski & Thomas F. Crossley, 2011. "Viewpoint: Measuring the well‐being of the poor with income or consumption: a Canadian perspective," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(1), pages 88-106, February.
    13. Bound, John & Brown, Charles & Mathiowetz, Nancy, 2001. "Measurement error in survey data," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 59, pages 3705-3843, Elsevier.
    14. Sanford V. Berg, 1974. "Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 3, number 3," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number aesm74-3, August.
    15. Hoderlein, Stefan & Winter, Joachim, 2010. "Structural measurement errors in nonseparable models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 157(2), pages 432-440, August.
    16. Joachim Winter, 2004. "Response bias in survey-based measures of household consumption," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 3(9), pages 1-12.
    17. Adam Bee & Bruce D. Meyer & James X. Sullivan, 2013. "The Validity of Consumption Data: Are the Consumer Expenditure Interview and Diary Surveys Informative?," NBER Chapters, in: Improving the Measurement of Consumer Expenditures, pages 204-240, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. 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.
    19. Melvin Stephens Jr., 2003. ""3rd of tha Month": Do Social Security Recipients Smooth Consumption Between Checks?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 406-422, March.
    20. Michael D. Hurd & Susann Rohwedder, 2010. "Effects of the Financial Crisis and Great Recession on American Households," NBER Working Papers 16407, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. van Soest, Arthur & Hurd, Michael, 2008. "A Test for Anchoring and Yea-Saying in Experimental Consumption Data," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 103, pages 126-136, March.
    22. Sanford V. Berg, 1974. "Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 3, number 4," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number aesm74-4, August.
    23. Garry Barrett & Peter Levell & Kevin Milligan, 2014. "A Comparison of Micro and Macro Expenditure Measures across Countries Using Differing Survey Methods," NBER Chapters, in: Improving the Measurement of Consumer Expenditures, pages 263-286, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Tomas Philipson, 1997. "Data Markets and the Production of Surveys," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 64(1), pages 47-72.
    25. Sanford V. Berg, 1974. "Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 3, number 2," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number aesm74-2, August.
    26. Clarke, Philip M. & Fiebig, Denzil G. & Gerdtham, Ulf-G., 2008. "Optimal recall length in survey design," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 1275-1284, September.
    27. Hausman, J. A. & Newey, W. K. & Powell, J. L., 1995. "Nonlinear errors in variables Estimation of some Engel curves," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 205-233, January.
    28. W. F. F. Kemsley, 1961. "The Household Expenditure Enquiry of the Ministry of Labour," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 10(3), pages 117-135, November.
    29. Margaret Grosh & Paul Glewwe, 2000. "Designing Household Survey Questionnaires for Developing Countries," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 25338, December.
    30. Richard Blundell & Luigi Pistaferri & Ian Preston, 2008. "Consumption Inequality and Partial Insurance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 1887-1921, December.
    31. Orazio Attanasio & Erich Battistin & Hidehiko Ichimura, 2004. "What Really Happened to Consumption Inequality in the US?," NBER Working Papers 10338, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    32. 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.
    33. Philipson, Tomas & Malani, Anup, 1999. "Measurement errors: A principal investigator-agent approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 273-298, August.
    34. Menno Pradhan, 2009. "Welfare Analysis with a Proxy Consumption Measure: Evidence from a Repeated Experiment in Indonesia," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 30(Special I), pages 391-417, December.
    35. Martin Browning & S¯ren Leth-Petersen, 2003. "Imputing consumption from income and wealth information," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(488), pages 282-301, June.
    36. Frauke Kreuter & Susan McCulloch & Stanley Presser & Roger Tourangeau, 2011. "The Effects of Asking Filter Questions in Interleafed Versus Grouped Format," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 40(1), pages 88-104, February.
    37. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:3:y:2004:i:9:p:1-12 is not listed on IDEAS
    38. Philipson, Tomas & Lawless, Thomas, 1997. "Multiple-output agency incentives in data production: experimental evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-5), pages 961-970, April.
    39. Michael D. Hurd & Susann Rohwedder, 2010. "Effects of the Financial Crisis and Great Recession on American Households," NBER Working Papers 16407, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    40. Jens Bonke & Martin Browning, 2009. "The Allocation of Expenditures within the Household: A New Survey," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 30(Special I), pages 461-481, December.
    41. Daniel McFadden & Albert Bemmaor & Francis Caro & Jeff Dominitz & Byung-Hill Jun & Arthur Lewbel & Rosa Matzkin & Francesca Molinari & Norbert Schwarz & Robert Willis & Joachim Winter, 2005. "Statistical Analysis of Choice Experiments and Surveys," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 183-196, December.
    42. Angus Deaton & Valerie Kozel, 2005. "Data and Dogma: The Great Indian Poverty Debate," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank Group, vol. 20(2), pages 177-199.
    43. Skinner, Jonathan, 1987. "A superior measure of consumption from the panel study of income dynamics," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 213-216.
    44. Naeem Ahmed & Matthew Brzozowski & Thomas Crossley, 2006. "Measurement errors in recall food consumption data," IFS Working Papers W06/21, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    45. Isabel McWhinney & Harold E. Champion, 1974. "The Canadian Experience with Recall and Diary Methods in Consumer Expenditure Surveys," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 3, number 2, pages 411-437, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Battistin, Erich & De Nadai, Michele & Krishnan, Nandini, 2020. "The Insights and Illusions of Consumption Measurements," CEPR Discussion Papers 14730, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Adam Bee & Bruce D. Meyer & James X. Sullivan, 2013. "The Validity of Consumption Data: Are the Consumer Expenditure Interview and Diary Surveys Informative?," NBER Chapters, in: Improving the Measurement of Consumer Expenditures, pages 204-240, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. John Bagnall & David Bounie & Kim P. Huynh & Anneke Kosse & Tobias Schmidt & Scott Schuh, 2016. "Consumer Cash Usage: A Cross-Country Comparison with Payment Diary Survey Data," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 12(4), pages 1-61, December.
    4. Elisa Sicuri & Azucena Bardají & Sergi Sanz & Sergi Alonso & Silke Fernandes & Kara Hanson & Myriam Arevalo-Herrera & Clara Menéndez, 2018. "Patients’ costs, socio-economic and health system aspects associated with malaria in pregnancy in an endemic area of Colombia," PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(5), pages 1-13, May.
    5. Van Ooijen, Raun & de Bresser, Jochem & Knoef, Marike, 2018. "Health and Household Expenditures," Other publications TiSEM 0912a7f0-22f5-4f25-acbc-e, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    6. Lührmann, Melanie & Serra-Garcia, Marta & Winter, Joachim, 2015. "Teaching teenagers in finance: Does it work?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 160-174.
    7. Marcin Hitczenko, 2021. "Improved Estimation of Poisson Rate Distributions through a Multi-Mode Survey Design," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2021-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    8. Winter, Joachim & Lührmann, Melanie & Serra Garcia, Marta, 2013. "The effects of financial literacy training: Evidence from a field experiment in German high schools," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79744, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    9. Alice sanwald & Engelbert Theurl, 2014. "What drives out-of pocket health expenditures of private households? - Empirical evidence from the Austrian household budget survey," Working Papers 2014-04, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    10. 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.
    11. Marcin Hitczenko, 2022. "Improved Estimation of Poisson Rate Distributions Through a Multimode Survey Design," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 51(2), pages 699-727, May.

    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. 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.
    2. Brzozowski, Matthew & Crossley, Thomas F. & Winter, Joachim K., 2017. "A comparison of recall and diary food expenditure data," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 53-61.
    3. Hoderlein, Stefan & Winter, Joachim, 2010. "Structural measurement errors in nonseparable models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 157(2), pages 432-440, August.
    4. 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.
    5. Campos, Rodolfo G. & Reggio, Iliana, 2014. "Measurement error in imputation procedures," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 197-202.
    6. Battistin, Erich & De Nadai, Michele & Krishnan, Nandini, 2020. "The Insights and Illusions of Consumption Measurements," IZA Discussion Papers 13222, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. Adam Bee & Bruce D. Meyer & James X. Sullivan, 2013. "The Validity of Consumption Data: Are the Consumer Expenditure Interview and Diary Surveys Informative?," NBER Chapters, in: Improving the Measurement of Consumer Expenditures, pages 204-240, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Beegle, Kathleen & De Weerdt, Joachim & Friedman, Jed & Gibson, John, 2012. "Methods of household consumption measurement through surveys: Experimental results from Tanzania," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(1), pages 3-18.
    11. Susanne M. Schennach, 2012. "Measurement error in nonlinear models - a review," CeMMAP working papers 41/12, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    12. Marcin Hitczenko, 2013. "Optimal recall period length in consumer payment surveys," Working Papers 13-16, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    13. Fiedler, John L. & Mwangi, Dena M., 2016. "Improving household consumption and expenditure surveys’ food consumption metrics: Developing a strategic approach to the unfinished agenda:," IFPRI discussion papers 1570, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    14. 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.
    15. Campos, Rodolfo G. & Reggio, Iliana, 2013. "Measurement error and imputation of consumption in survey data," UC3M Working papers. Economics we1219, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    16. H. Evren Damar & Reint Gropp & Adi Mordel, 2014. "Banks’ Financial Distress, Lending Supply and Consumption Expenditure," Staff Working Papers 14-7, Bank of Canada.
    17. Winter, Joachim, 0000. "Design effects in survey-based measures of household consumption," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 02-34, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim;Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.
    18. 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.
    19. Naeem Ahmed & Matthew Brzozowski & Thomas Crossley, 2006. "Measurement errors in recall food consumption data," IFS Working Papers W06/21, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    20. Zhao, Da & Wu, Tianhao & He, Qiwei, 2017. "Consumption inequality and its evolution in urban China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 208-228.

    More about this item

    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
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis

    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:19543. 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.