This paper provides a unified explanation for why blacks commit more crime, are located in poorer neighborhoods and receive lower wages than whites. If everybody believes that blacks are more criminal than whites - even if there is no basis for this - then blacks are offered lower wages and, as...

We present a stated-preference study where values of statistical lives (VSL) are derived both as public and private goods, and we distinguish between three different death causes, heart disease, environmentally related illnesses and traffic accidents. 1000 randomly chosen individuals in Norway...

We examine the effects on survey estimates of extended interviewer efforts to gain survey response, including refusal conversion attempts and attempts to make contact with hard-to-contact sample members. Specifically, we update and extend the research of Lynn & Clarke (2002). We estimate bias...

The Department for Work and Pensions committed itself to exploring the take-up of Carer's Allowance at the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee in May 2009. This study was commissioned as a first step in that enquiry. The report summarises the questions and discusses possible research...

We assess whether the probability of a sample member participating at a particular wave of a panel survey is greater if the same interviewer is deployed as at the previous wave. Previous research on this topic mainly uses non-experimental data. Consequently, a) interviewer change is generally...

We analyse the results of experiments on aspects of the design of questionnaire and interview mode in the 2009 wave of the new UK Understanding Society panel survey. The randomised experiments relate to job- and life-satisfaction questions and vary the labeling of response scales, the mode of...

Respondents in long telephone survey interviews may adopt satisficing strategies as they approach the end of the questionnaire (Holbrook, Green and Krosnick, 2003). However, there is inconsistency regarding the relationship between questionnaire length and different forms of satisficing. We...

In the UK, in order to link individual-level administrative records to survey responses, a respondent needs to give their written consent. This paper explores whether characteristics of the respondent, the interviewer or survey design features influence consent. We use the BHPS combined with a...

We conduct two large-scale randomised experiments on the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) to study methods of reducing panel attrition. The first experiment compares different strategies for tracing and maintaining contact with sample members. We find that change-of-address cards...