It is common practice to adapt the format of a question to the mode of data collection. Multi-coded questions in self-completion and face-to-face modes tend to be transformed for telephone into a series of ’yes/no’ questions. Questions with response scales are often branched in...

The presence of an interviewer is hypothesised to motivate respondents to generate an accurate answer and reduce task difficulty, but also to reduce the privacy of the reporting situation. The prevalence of indicators of satisficing (e.g., non-differentiation, acquiescence, middle categories,...

Whether questions and answers are transmitted between interviewer and respondent by visual or aural communication can affect the responses given. We hypothesise that communication channel can affect either the respondent's understanding of the question or the tendency to satisfice. These effects...

A large empirical literature suggests that a proportion of employees are over-educated (overqualified) for the jobs that they do. It also estimates the impact of this mismatch on wages The empirical results suggest that having more education than is needed for a job generates a premium relative...

We test whether in Great Britain the recent increase in the supply of university graduates has a negative impact on their wages, and analyse to what extent the local labour market for graduates should be seen as regional rather than national. We do this by computing two measures of job...

It is a long-standing principle in anthropology, sociology but also economics, that there are strong social and material incentives for people to marry or partner on the basis of social similarity, thus encouraging equality within partnerships but social inequality in the distribution of...

Partnerships continue to be determined by mutual considerations of the economic value of prospective partners. Whereas in the past this worked through property or income, the basis for assessment is now given by several facets of an individual's human capital, some of which are observed only by...

We use British and German panel data to analyse job changes involving a change in occupation. We assess the extent of occupational change, taking into account the possibility of measurement error in occupational codes; whether job changes within the occupation differ from occupation changes in...