<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>The U.S. Consumer Expenditure Interview Survey asks many filter questions to identify the items that households purchase. Each reported purchase triggers follow-up questions about the amount spent and other details. We test the hypothesis that respondents learn how the questionnaire is structured and underreport purchases in later waves to reduce the length of the interview. We analyze data from 10,416 four-wave respondents over two years of data collection. We find no evidence of decreasing data quality over time; instead, panel respondents tend to give higher quality responses in later waves. The results also hold for a larger set of two-wave respondents.</p></abstract>

The U.S. Consumer Expenditure Interview Survey asks many filter questions to identify the items that households purchase. Each reported purchase triggers follow-up questions about the amount spent and other details. We test the hypothesis that respondents learn how the questionnaire is structured and underreport purchases in later waves to reduce the length of the interview. We analyze data from 10,416 four-wave respondents over two years of data collection. We find no evidence of decreasing data quality over time; instead, panel respondents tend to give higher quality responses in later waves. The results also hold for a larger set of two-wave respondents.

Panel Conditioning in the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey

Journal of Official Statistics

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Panel Conditioning in the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey"}

The U.S. Consumer Expenditure Interview Survey asks many filter questions to identify the items that households purchase. Each reported purchase triggers...

Panel Conditioning in the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey

Published Online: Mar 13, 2021

Page range: 53 - 69

Received: May 01, 2020

Accepted: Dec 01, 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jos-2021-0003

Keywords
Measurement error, panel conditioning, consumer expenditure

© 2020 Stephanie Eckman et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Panel Conditioning in the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey

Published Online: Mar 13, 2021

Page range: 53 - 69

Received: May 01, 2020

Accepted: Dec 01, 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jos-2021-0003

KeywordsMeasurement error, panel conditioning, consumer expenditure

© 2020 Stephanie Eckman et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
Measurement error, panel conditioning, consumer expenditure