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Title: Evaluation of a Monetary Incentive Payment Experiment in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 Cohort
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Datta, Atreyee Rupa
Horrigan, Michael W.
Walker, James R.
Evaluation of a Monetary Incentive Payment Experiment in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 Cohort
Presented: Arlington, VA, Federal Committee on Statistcal Methodology Conference, November 14-16, 2001.
Also: http://www.fcsm.gov/01papers/Horrigan.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology (FCSM)
Keyword(s): Interviewing Method; Longitudinal Surveys

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

The evidence on incentives in survey literature shows that the effectiveness of incentives varies considerably with the topic of the survey, the nature of the respondent, the amount of the incentive, the survey sponsorship, and the form and timing of the payment. (See, for instance, Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, September 1993; Ezzait-Rice, White, Mosher and Sanchez, 1995; Kulka 1995; Groves and Couper, 1998 [chapter 10]; Singer, Van Hoewyrk, Gebler, Raghunathan and McGonagle, 1999; and Singer, 2000.) The literature, however, is sparse on the special case of panel surveys, although anecdotal evidence is available—especially on the effect of unchanging incentive payment levels over several years as has been the case in the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS) Program. We contribute to the literature on the effect of incentive fees in panel surveys by providing preliminary analysis of results from an incentive fee experiment conducted in the fourth round of interviews (conducted between November 2000 and June 2001) of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 Cohort (NLSY97).

Respondents of the NLSY97 were born in the years 1980-84 and were 16 to 20 years old in the fourth round of annual interviews. Although the response rates for the first three rounds of interviewing were above 90 percent, the response rate for Round 3 was slightly lower than that of Round 2. The payment incentive during the first three rounds was constant at $10 and was paid by the field interviewer at the completion of the interview. Concerned over the decline in responses rates and its implication for future rounds, the sponsor of the study, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), applied for and received approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to conduct an experiment manipulating the timing of payment and the level of respondent fee paid. The interviews for the NLSY97 are conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) of the University of Chicago under contract to the BLS. The experiment had two treatments: (1) payment of the fee prior to scheduling the in-person interview; and (2) increases in respondent fees.

Bibliography Citation
Datta, Atreyee Rupa, Michael W. Horrigan and James R. Walker. "Evaluation of a Monetary Incentive Payment Experiment in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 Cohort." Presented: Arlington, VA, Federal Committee on Statistcal Methodology Conference, November 14-16, 2001.