Incentives in the form of a gift or money are given to survey respondents in the hope that this will increase response rates and possibly also reduce non-response bias. They can also act as a means of thanking respondents for taking part and showing appreciation for the time the respondent has...

We conduct two large-scale randomised experiments on the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) to study methods of reducing panel attrition. The first experiment compares different strategies for tracing and maintaining contact with sample members. We find that change-of-address cards...

Economic theory suggests that when a primary earner within a couple loses their job, one potential response is for the secondary earner to seek additional paid work to bolster their household finances. Yet, the empirical quantitative evidence regarding any such 'added worker effect' is mixed. To...

We measure trust and trustworthiness in British society with an experiment using real monetary rewards and a sample of the British population. The study also asks the most typical survey question that aims to measure trust, showing that it does not predict trust as measured in the experiment....

This descriptive paper reports the results of an experiment carried out at wave 14 (2004) of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). A split-sample design was used to assess the effect on response rates of increasing the monetary incentive given to survey respondents from 7 per interview to...

This paper documents the introduction of dependent interviewing in wave 16 of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). Dependent interviewing is a method of designing questions on longitudinal surveys where substantive information, available to the survey organisation prior to the interview,...

This paper examines the conversion from PAPI to CAPI of the British Household Panel Survey at Wave 9 (1999). The paper describes the procedures adopted by the BHPS and examines the impact of the introduction of CAPI on key variables within the data.

Finding a new job is not the only problem the unemployed face. How to manage the loss of income, status and identity can also be a serious consideration for those in between jobs. In-depth qualitative interviews reveal that family, friends and wider networks are important mainstays in helping...