Abstract:
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Declining response rates to surveys is a widespread and troubling problem. Unit non-response (when a household is not interviewed at all) has been rising in most surveys. For example, unit non-response rates rose by 3-12 percentage points over the 1990s for six U.S. Census Bureau surveys (Atrostic et al. 2001). Many recent papers have raised the concern that this increased non-response has led to bias in key statistics. In light of this pattern, we propose a new method to evaluate and correct bias from unit non-response. Specifically, we use addresses to link the 2011 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC) and the 2008 Panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to IRS Form 1040 for their respective reference years. This link allows us to compare several characteristics of respondents and non-respondents, including income, self-employment status, marital status, number of children, and the receipt of pensions and certain government benefits. We then compare our new methods of assessing bias to prior methods. Finally, we evaluate existing weighting methods and consider alternative weighting methods and other corrections.
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