Rotation group bias in reporting of household purchases in the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey

We find rotation group bias in reports of spending in the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey. Contrary to our expectations, the more waves respondents complete, the higher the quality of their responses. Respondents become more likely to report the amount of money spent on purchases and less likely to...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Economics letters 2020-02, Vol.187, p.108889, Article 108889
Main Authors: Bach, Ruben L., Eckman, Stephanie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bias
Consumer behavior
Consumer expenditure
Consumer spending
Expenditures
Misreports
Money
Polls & surveys
Rotation
Rotation group bias
U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey
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Summary:We find rotation group bias in reports of spending in the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey. Contrary to our expectations, the more waves respondents complete, the higher the quality of their responses. Respondents become more likely to report the amount of money spent on purchases and less likely to report rounded amounts. There is no change over waves in the number of purchases reported or the average amount of money spent on the purchases. •We document rotation group bias in the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE).•Among four-time respondents, data quality improves over waves.•With increasing time in sample, households more likely to report amount spent.•Households less likely to round amounts with increasing time in sample.•No effect on number of purchases or average amount of money spent on purchases.
ISSN:0165-1765
1873-7374
DOI:10.1016/j.econlet.2019.108889