Monetary Incentives in Large-Scale Face-to-Face Surveys: Evidence from a Series of Experiments. (18th August 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Blohm, Michael; Koch, Achim
• Is Part Of: International journal of public opinion research. Volume 33:Number 3(2021)
• Page Start: 690
• Page End: 702
• Publication Date: 2021-08-18
• Subjects: Public opinion -- Addresses, essays, lectures -- Periodicals; 303.38
• DOI: 10.1093/ijpor/edab007
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0954-2892

Abstract

Abstract: Monetary respondent incentives are a means to counteract the trend toward declining response rates. This article summarizes the results of a series of experiments conducted in the past decade in the German General Social Survey. We found that prepaid monetary incentives led to a higher increase in response than promised incentives. There was no evidence that either promised or prepaid incentives had a systematic effect on sample composition. The incentives helped to reduce fieldwork efforts. Thus, the costs of incentives can—at least partially—be offset by a reduction in the number of contact attempts required to achieve a certain number of completed interviews. Our findings are highly credible due to the replicative design of the experiments.