Response Burden and Data Quality in Business Surveys: The Experience of Banca d'Italia

Posted: 1 Aug 2019

Date Written: October 4, 2018

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the dynamics of response burden in the main business surveys conducted by Banca d’Italia and we investigate its relationship with some data quality indicators. We find evidence of a significant increase in actual burden over time which has contributed to amplifying the perceived burden. Our results also show a clear link between a respondent’s perceived effort and the probability of not answering some important questions (such as those relating to expectations of future investments and turnover) or of dropping out of the survey. Further, we find that firms reporting a high perceived burden tend to provide inaccurate answers to quantitative questions and to choose the first plausible response when confronted with complex questions.

Keywords: response burden, business survey, item and unit non-response, measurement error

JEL Classification: C8

Suggested Citation

Bottone, Marco and Neri, Andrea and Modugno, Lucia, Response Burden and Data Quality in Business Surveys: The Experience of Banca d'Italia (October 4, 2018). Bank of Italy Occasional Paper No. 467, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3429844

Marco Bottone (Contact Author)

Bank of Italy ( email )

Via Nazionale 91
Rome, 00184
Italy

Andrea Neri

Bank of Italy ( email )

Via Nazionale 91
00184 Roma
Italy

Lucia Modugno

Bank of Italy ( email )

Via Nazionale 91
Rome, 00184
Italy

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