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- Title
FINANCIAL INCENTIVES, SURVEY RESPONSE, AND SAMPLE REPRESENTATIVENESS: DOES MONEY MATTER?
- Authors
Peck, Jan K.; Dresch, Stephen P.
- Abstract
This article reports the results of an experimental test of the consequences of financial incentives for responses to a lengthy mailed questionnaire. The effects of incentives are assessed with reference to (1) aggregate response rates and speed of response, (2) differential probabilities of response across demographic groups, (3) the apparent quality of the returned questionnaires, (4) representativeness of conditional expectations in the estimation of behavioral relationships, and (5) survey costs. The experiment contrasts prepaid first-wave, promised, and prepaid second-wave incentive treatments to a no-incentive control incentives, especially first-wave prepaid incentives, are found to increase aggregate response rates significantly, although the underrepresentation of some groups in the respondent sample may be exacerbated. The quality of responses is not found to be affected by incentives. No evidence is found of bias in regression estimates of behavioral relationships due either to incentives themselves or to incentive-related differences in response rates.
- Subjects
MAIL surveys; RESPONSE rates; MONEY
- Publication
Review of Public Data Use, 1981, Vol 9, Issue 4, p245
- ISSN
0092-2846
- Publication type
Article