Response Error in Survey Reports of Earnings Information
Abstract This study examines response error in survey reports of earnings information to determine if systematic bias will exist in the responses of particular groups in a sample. The misreporting of earnings data is regressed upon the characteristics of the sample and of the jobs they held. Response error is found to regress significantly upon sex, age, education, training status (motivation to respond incorrectly), magnitude of reported earnings, interviewer familiarity with the schedule, and the number of hours employed. This leads to the conclusion that survey earnings data will require adjustments, other than those for sampling error, to remove the bias of response error.