This article examines the determinants of attrition in deliberative mini-publics. We approach attrition from a social psychological and a socioeconomic perspective and draw several hypotheses. We find that age and life situation are the primary predictors of attrition, but also having a negative...

For nearly 40 years, the European Commission has observed the development of the European Union as it is reflected in public opinion. The Eurobarometer measures the European population’s attitudes about various issues related to Europe. The informational value of the Eurobarometer is viewed...

This paper presents a systematic study of survey mechanisms that produce or reduce minority bias in social surveys. It extends the work of Lipps et al. (<CitationRef CitationID="CR13">2011</CitationRef>) who have demonstrated that, in the Swiss context, the more an ethno-national minority community differs, socio-culturally and...</citationref>

Event history calendars (EHC) have proven to be a powerful tool for collecting retrospective autobiographical life course data. One problem is that they are only standardized to a limited extent. This restricts their applicability in large-scale surveys. However, in such surveys, a modularized...

Survey questions asking about taboo topics such as sexual activities, illegal behaviour such as social fraud, or unsocial attitudes such as racism, often generate inaccurate survey estimates which are distorted by social desirability bias. Due to self-presentation concerns, survey respondents...

The paper discusses synthetically an epistemological question in the field of economics: how to translate a real problem into formal terms without a substantial loss of significance for its solution in policy making. The discussion will challenge the plausibility of the basic assumption of...