Availability of Respondent Provided Financial Records to Supplement Self-Reports of Household Expenditures

Abstract

Use of respondent records is a method for supplementing survey data. Records can improve data quality when data collected by self-report are subject to recall or other measurement errors. One limitation of using respondent records is that respondents often cannot provide records for all survey items of interest. We explored the availability of respondent records using data from the Consumer Expenditure Records Study (CE Records Study). The CE Records Study is a non-probability feasibility study that examined the accuracy of self-reported data for various types of household expenditures. In the first interview, participants provided self-reports about the cost of household expenditures from the previous three months. In a follow-up interview, participants provided records (e.g., receipts, bank statements, bills) for all expenditures asked about. By comparing self-reports and records, we were able to evaluate the accuracy of self-reports. Records were available for 36% of the 3,039 expenditures reported. There were several expenditure and respondent characteristics that were associated with the availability of records suggesting that use of retrospective record collection may be more successful for supplementing self-reported data for certain types of consumer surveys compared to others.