Advances in agricultural data production provide ever-increasing opportunities for pushing the research frontier in agricultural economics and designing better agricultural policy. As new technologies present opportunities to create new and integrated data sources, researchers face tradeoffs in...

We examine optimal time of day and day of week for conducting random digit dial (RDD) surveys in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Different types of survey respondents have competing time demands that influence when they are likely to be able and willing to answer the phone and complete...

Respondent biases introduce measurement error into household statistics. There are two components of respondent bias in household surveys: asymmetric information between proxy respondent and the individual on whom they report and aggregation bias when a proxy respondent reports on a...

We investigate the reliability of land measurement modes on non-classical measurement error and empirical relationships. In our multi-country survey experiment, we find significant differences between GPS and remotely sensed data only in Viet Nam, where plot sizes are small relative to the other...

Response rates remain low in phone surveys compared to face-to-face data collection (see here for a similar brief on response rates). This is especially true for random digit dial (RDD) or similar “cold call” phone surveys, which are necessary in the absence of a sample frame of reliable...

This research methods brief presents data from random digit dial (RDD) surveys in nine countries. We show that response rates to such surveys are typically below 60 percent and can be as low as 7 percent. We also show that most of the sample is lost at two points in the survey: non-contact,...

We study the relationship between physical activity as a direct measure of effort and productivity. First, we evaluate the association of agricultural workers' physical activity with their daily productivity, which is directly observed from company personnel piece-rate payment records, and find...

Causal inference lies at the heart of social science, and the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics highlights the value of randomized variation for identifying causal effects and mechanisms. But causal inference cannot rely on randomized variation alone; it also requires good data. Yet the...