Measuring the Unmeasured : Combining Technology and Behavioral Insights to Improve Measurement of Business Outcomes

Business survey outcomes for micro and small firms are notoriously noisy, with multiple sources of measurement and recall error. This paper introduces a new survey methodology that combines automatic consistency checks of electronic data collection...

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Main Authors:	Anderson, Stephen J., Lazicky, Christy, Zia, Bilal
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2019
Subjects:	MICROENTERPRISES SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES SURVEY METHODS FIRM PRODUCTIVITY
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/848101556644958454/Measuring-the-Unmeasured-Combining-Technology-and-Behavioral-Insights-to-Improve-Measurement-of-Business-Outcomes http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31601

id	okr-10986-31601
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-316012021-07-26T06:23:10Z Measuring the Unmeasured : Combining Technology and Behavioral Insights to Improve Measurement of Business Outcomes Anderson, Stephen J. Lazicky, Christy Zia, Bilal MICROENTERPRISES SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES SURVEY METHODS FIRM PRODUCTIVITY Business survey outcomes for micro and small firms are notoriously noisy, with multiple sources of measurement and recall error. This paper introduces a new survey methodology that combines automatic consistency checks of electronic data collection with triangulation and dynamic adjustment to arrive at more precise estimates of business performance. The methodology uses insights from behavioral science to lower the cognitive cost of initial recall and establishes salient and relevant anchors to allow for dynamic triangulation and adjustment toward a final estimate. The validity of this method is field tested against traditional performance measures as well as administrative data across three emerging markets: Ghana, Rwanda, and Uganda. The results show significant upward adjustment from traditional measures for both sales and profits, a lower coefficient of variation in the cross-section, and higher autocorrelation in panel data. Comparisons with administrative data further confirm a higher correlation and closer magnitude relative to traditional measures. This research reconciles recommendations for increased attention to survey design with a method to leverage electronic survey technology beyond consistency checks. 2019-05-02T18:45:34Z 2019-05-02T18:45:34Z 2019-04 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/848101556644958454/Measuring-the-Unmeasured-Combining-Technology-and-Behavioral-Insights-to-Improve-Measurement-of-Business-Outcomes http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31601 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8836 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Africa Ghana Rwanda Uganda
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	MICROENTERPRISES SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES SURVEY METHODS FIRM PRODUCTIVITY
spellingShingle	MICROENTERPRISES SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES SURVEY METHODS FIRM PRODUCTIVITY Anderson, Stephen J. Lazicky, Christy Zia, Bilal Measuring the Unmeasured : Combining Technology and Behavioral Insights to Improve Measurement of Business Outcomes
geographic_facet	Africa Ghana Rwanda Uganda
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8836
description	Business survey outcomes for micro and small firms are notoriously noisy, with multiple sources of measurement and recall error. This paper introduces a new survey methodology that combines automatic consistency checks of electronic data collection with triangulation and dynamic adjustment to arrive at more precise estimates of business performance. The methodology uses insights from behavioral science to lower the cognitive cost of initial recall and establishes salient and relevant anchors to allow for dynamic triangulation and adjustment toward a final estimate. The validity of this method is field tested against traditional performance measures as well as administrative data across three emerging markets: Ghana, Rwanda, and Uganda. The results show significant upward adjustment from traditional measures for both sales and profits, a lower coefficient of variation in the cross-section, and higher autocorrelation in panel data. Comparisons with administrative data further confirm a higher correlation and closer magnitude relative to traditional measures. This research reconciles recommendations for increased attention to survey design with a method to leverage electronic survey technology beyond consistency checks.
format	Working Paper
author	Anderson, Stephen J. Lazicky, Christy Zia, Bilal
author_facet	Anderson, Stephen J. Lazicky, Christy Zia, Bilal
author_sort	Anderson, Stephen J.
title	Measuring the Unmeasured : Combining Technology and Behavioral Insights to Improve Measurement of Business Outcomes
title_short	Measuring the Unmeasured : Combining Technology and Behavioral Insights to Improve Measurement of Business Outcomes
title_full	Measuring the Unmeasured : Combining Technology and Behavioral Insights to Improve Measurement of Business Outcomes
title_fullStr	Measuring the Unmeasured : Combining Technology and Behavioral Insights to Improve Measurement of Business Outcomes
title_full_unstemmed	Measuring the Unmeasured : Combining Technology and Behavioral Insights to Improve Measurement of Business Outcomes
title_sort	measuring the unmeasured : combining technology and behavioral insights to improve measurement of business outcomes
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2019
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/848101556644958454/Measuring-the-Unmeasured-Combining-Technology-and-Behavioral-Insights-to-Improve-Measurement-of-Business-Outcomes http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31601
_version_	1764474701037436928

Measuring the Unmeasured : Combining Technology and Behavioral Insights to Improve Measurement of Business Outcomes

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