Does survey mode matter? Comparing in-person and phone agricultural surveys in India

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Anderson, Ellen; Lybbert, Travis J.; Shenoy, Ashish; Singh, Rupika; Stein, Daniel
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Davis
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2023.103199
• 发表日期: 2024
• 关键词: Data collection; Phone survey; Survey mode; agriculture; measurement error

摘要

Ubiquitous mobile phone ownership makes phone surveying an attractive method of low-cost data collection. We explore differences between in-person and phone survey measures of agricultural production collected for an impact evaluation in India. Phone responses have greater mean and variance, a difference that persists even within a subset of respondents that answered the same question over both modes. Treatment effect estimation remains stable across survey mode, but estimates are less precise when using phone data. These patterns are informative for cost and sample size considerations in study design and for aggregating evidence across study sites or time periods.