Surveys differ in the way they measure satisfaction and happiness, so comparative research findings are vulnerable to distortion by survey design differences. We examine this using the British Household Panel Survey, exploiting its changes in question design and parallel use of different...

Survey respondents often use simple strategies to answer retrospective questions about their level of consumption expenditure, resulting in the heaping of data at certain round numbers. In the panel context, wave-to-wave ‘leaping’ from one ‘heap’ to another can distort...

We investigate the processes underlying payment of Attendance Allowance (AA) in the older UK population, using a partial identication approach. Receipt of AA requires that (i) a claim is made and (ii) programme administrators assess the claim as warranting an award. These processes cannot be...

We consider the neglected issue of the dynamics of perceptions, as expressed in responses to survey questions on subjective well-being. We develop a simulated ML method for estimation for dynamic linear models, where the dependent variable is partially observed through ordinal scales. This...

We estimate parametric and semi-parametric binary choice models of benefit take-up by British pensioners and use a revealed preference argument to infer the cash-equivalent value of disutility arising from stigma or complexity of the claims process. These implicit costs turn out to be relatively...

We investigate the consequences of using time-invariant individual effects in panel data models when the unobservables are in fact time-varying. Using data from the British Offending Crime and Justice panel, we estimate a dynamic factor model of the occurrence of a range of illicit activities as...