CID Speaker Series: Thomas Crossley

Mar 7, 2025
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CID Speaker Series

Uncovering Measurement Error with Survey Design

Thomas Crossley

When

Tuesday, April 15, 2025

1:00 p.m.–2:30 p.m.

Where

CID Studio (ISR 2030)

Get directions ↗

Past event

About the event

Join the Stone Center for Inequality Dynamics as Thomas Crossley, Research Professor and Senior Economist, Director of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics in the Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, presents, “Uncovering Measurement Error with Survey Design.”
 

Abstract: Survey data on incomes remain a key data source for measuring living standards and inequality but are known to suffer from reporting errors. Linked administrative data have been used to assess measurement error, but even when available such data often cover only specific components of income (for example, earnings) and/or only provide individual (not family or household) level data. We implement and test a design for identifying reporting errors directly in the survey data collection process. The key feature is an Editable Summary Screen that allows individuals and couples to review previous answers and implied totals, and then to confirm or correct. We first present a description of the resulting corrections. The corrections imply, for example, that period errors and problems with joint receipt within couples are fairly prevalent, but that misplaced decimals and source misclassification errors are nonexistent. There are corrections in a range of income sources, with revisions to benefit reports the most common, and revision to self-employment income the largest in mean absolute value. Downward revisions are more common than upward revisions, but the latter are larger in absolute value. We then consider how the confirmations and corrections can be incorporated in a formal econometric model to deliver improved inferences about the income distribution.

 
 



About the speaker

Thomas (Tom) Crossley is a Research Professor in SRC and Director of the Panel Study for Income Dynamics (PSID). He is also a co-investigator (and former Associate DIrector) of Understanding Society (The UK Household Longitudinal Study, sister study to the PSID). From 2016 to 2022 he was an ONS Fellow and member of the Office for National Statistics’ Economics Experts Working Group (the ONS is the National Statistical Agency in the UK) and he was also for many years an advisor to Statistics Canada. Tom is an elected member of the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth (CRIW) and previously served as an elected Council Member for the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth (IARIW).  His research interests include household behaviour, financial security, and living standards; the design, collection and analysis of survey data; and economic measurement more broadly.

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