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American Economic Review Vol. 103 No. 7 2013

Conclusions Regarding Cross-Group Differences in Happiness Depend on Difficulty of Reaching Respondents

Ori Heffetz1; Matthew Rabin2

1 S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University, 324 Sage Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853. · 2 Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley, 508-1 Evans Hall No. 3880, Berkeley, CA 94720.

open access

Abstract

A growing literature explores differences in subjective well-being across demographic groups, often relying on surveys with high nonresponse rates. By using the reported number of call attempts made to participants in the University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers, we show that comparisons among easy-to-reach respondents differ from comparisons among hard-to-reach ones. Notably, easy-to-reach women are happier than easy-to-reach men, but hard-to-reach men are happier than hard-to-reach women, and conclusions of a survey could reverse with more attempted calls. Better alternatives to comparing group sample averages might include putting greater weight on hard-to-reach respondents or even extrapolating trends in responses.

DOI
10.1257/aer.103.7.3001
Volume
103
Issue
7
Pages
3001-3021
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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