Respondent behavior in panel studies : a case study for income-nonresponse by means of the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP)

Many validation studies deal with item-nonresponse and measurement error in earnings data. In this paper we explore motives of respondents for the failure to reveal earnings using the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). GSOEP collects socio-economic information of private households in the Federal Republic of Germany. We explain the evolution of income-nonresponse in the GSOEP and demonstrate the importance of a discrimination between refusing the income-statement or don't know.