Measurement Error in Recall Surveys and the Relationship between Household Size and Food Demand

Abstract

Variation in household survey design and implementation is used to obtain evidence of nonrandom measurement error in recall surveys of household expenditure. These surveys, which are used especially in developing countries, appear to have measurement errors in food expenditures and in food budget shares that are correlated with household size. These correlated errors may be part of the explanation for a puzzling pattern of falling food demand with rising household size in poorer countries. Copyright 2007, Oxford University Press.

Differences in Food Preparation by Race and Ethnicity: Evidence from the American Time Use Survey

“…Existing empirical studies, however, demonstrate the opposite of the theoretical predictions, and thus the literature analyzing this "food puzzle" examines the theoretical implications of household scale economies and measures of household welfare (Logan forthcoming; Gibson and Kim 2007;Paxson 2003, 1998;Gan and Vernon 2003;Gibson 2002).…”

Improving consumption measurement and other survey data through CAPI: Evidence from a randomized experiment

“…There is some consolation in this finding, as non-random, mean-reverting errors negatively correlated with true values bias regression coefficients even when just the dependent variable has error. When an explanatory variable has such error, its coefficient may be biased either toward or away from zero (Gibson and Kim, 2007). Moreover, the main correction for measurement error bias -instrumental variables (IV) -is inconsistent when errors are correlated with true values (Black et al, 2000).…”

Reliability of recall in agricultural data

“…These studies suggest that longer recall periods are associated with lower aggregate totals of frequent food expenditures. Gibson and Kim (2007) hypothesize that when respondents are asked to recall larger amounts of information from a greater number of transactions due to larger household size or longer recall period, they will shift from summing the total of individual remembered events to estimating the overall total. In a survey experiment in Papua New Guinea, Gibson (2002) found that the average food expenditure was 26% higher with a consumption diary (asking for consumption for each of the 7 days covered) than asking for one reported amount for the entire 7 days.…”