Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/252034 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 9517
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
Researchers and policy makers face significant challenges in selecting a method to conduct remote surveys, especially when collecting sensitive information or during turbulent life stages of hard-to-reach groups. In the context of the COVID-19 lockdown, we randomly selected about 600 adults in El Salvador to survey using two different tools: telephone interviews or a self-completion survey via WhatsApp. We find that phone-based surveys increase the rate of survey completion by 42 percentage points. We document even larger effects for women and older adults. Although direct costs of phone-based surveys are substantially larger—doubling implementation cost—our estimates imply that when adjusted for the probability of completion, the costs of conducting phone-based surveys can be 25 percent lower.
Subjects: 
phone surveys
WhatsApp surveys
response rate
survey experiments
JEL: 
C83
C81
C93
D91
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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