Bayesian Analysis of a Sensitive Proportion for a Small Area

Without accounting for sensitive items in sample surveys, sampled units may not respond (nonignorable nonresponse) or they respond untruthfully. There are several survey designs that address this problem and we will review some of them. In our study, we have binary data from clusters within small areas, obtained from a version of the unrelated‐question design, and the sensitive proportion is of interest for each area. A hierarchical Bayesian model is used to capture the variation in the observed binomial counts from the clusters within the small areas and to estimate the sensitive proportions for all areas. Both our example on college cheating and a simulation study show significant reductions in the posterior standard deviations of the sensitive proportions under the small‐area model as compared with an analogous individual‐area model. The simulation study also demonstrates that the estimates under the small‐area model are closer to the truth than for the corresponding estimates under the individual‐area model. Finally, for small areas, we discuss many extensions to accommodate covariates, finite population sampling, multiple sensitive items and optional designs.     

Taxes and Benefits: Two Options to Cheat on the State

In this article we study the social norms to abstain from cheating on the state via benefit fraud and tax evasion. We interpret these norms (called benefit morale and tax morale) as moral goods, and derive testable hypotheses on whether their demand is determined by prices. Employing a large survey data set from OECD‐member countries we provide robust evidence that the demand responds to price proxy variables as predicted by theory. The main general conclusion of this article is that social norms (which are widely accepted as determinants of individual economic behaviour) are themselves influenced by economic factors.     

大学生作弊现象的行为经济学假说

对大学生考试作弊的控制程度已成为衡量高校管理工作的一个重要指标,而研究大学生作弊行为的特点、探究其作弊的真实行为动机是寻求科学管理途径的重要一步。近年来,大量统计和调查数据显示大学生作弊呈现出很多新特点,但已有的基于传统经济学理性人假设的模型很难解释这些特点出现的原因。从行为经济学中的前景理论出发,建立模型假说可以有力的弥补传统经济学的这些不足,并以此提出切合实际的理论解释。     

The Impact of Monitoring and Sanctions on Cheating: Experimental Evidence from Tunisia

Using a laboratory experiment in a developing country (Tunisia, North Africa), we investigate whether the level of monitoring and both the nature (monetary versus moral) and magnitude of sanctions influence cheating levels. Our findings show that the introduction of weak monetary sanctions and monitoring is likely to increase cheating. However, a perfect monitoring is found to decrease the level of cheating. Moreover, when combined with a perfect monitoring, moral sanctions matter and may be even more effective than strong monetary sanctions in reducing cheating. We draw some policy implications regarding cheating in various domains. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Alternative Indicators for the Risk of Non‐response Bias: A Simulation Study

The growth of non‐response rates for social science surveys has led to increased concern about the risk of non‐response bias. Unfortunately, the non‐response rate is a poor indicator of when non‐response bias is likely to occur. We consider in this paper a set of alternative indicators. A large‐scale simulation study is used to explore how each of these indicators performs in a variety of circumstances. Although, as expected, none of the indicators fully depict the impact of non‐response in survey estimates, we discuss how they can be used when creating a plausible account of the risks for non‐response bias for a survey. We also describe an interesting characteristic of the fraction of missing information that may be helpful in diagnosing not‐missing‐at‐random mechanisms in certain situations.     

Uncertainty Estimation for Pseudo‐Bayesian Inference Under Complex Sampling

Social and economic studies are often implemented as complex survey designs. For example, multistage, unequal probability sampling designs utilised by federal statistical agencies are typically constructed to maximise the efficiency of the target domain level estimator (e.g. indexed by geographic area) within cost constraints for survey administration. Such designs may induce dependence between the sampled units; for example, with employment of a sampling step that selects geographically indexed clusters of units. A sampling‐weighted pseudo‐posterior distribution may be used to estimate the population model on the observed sample. The dependence induced between coclustered units inflates the scale of the resulting pseudo‐posterior covariance matrix that has been shown to induce under coverage of the credibility sets. By bridging results across Bayesian model misspecification and survey sampling, we demonstrate that the scale and shape of the asymptotic distributions are different between each of the pseudo‐maximum likelihood estimate (MLE), the pseudo‐posterior and the MLE under simple random sampling. Through insights from survey‐sampling variance estimation and recent advances in computational methods, we devise a correction applied as a simple and fast postprocessing step to Markov chain Monte Carlo draws of the pseudo‐posterior distribution. This adjustment projects the pseudo‐posterior covariance matrix such that the nominal coverage is approximately achieved. We make an application to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health as a motivating example and we demonstrate the efficacy of our scale and shape projection procedure on synthetic data on several common archetypes of survey designs.     

大学生逃课分析及改革探讨

平时逃课,考试作弊,凸显出了高等教育存在的严重问题。为了尽快提高高校教学质量,本文对大二和大四两个特殊时期的学生进行了书面调查,全面分析总结了两个阶段学生逃课的深层次原因,并提出了系统改进措施。     

Self-reported cheating in web surveys on political knowledge

Measuring citizens’ political knowledge is important for understanding public opinion formation. In view of the increasing popularity of Web surveys, this paper examines the limitations of this interviewing facility when measuring factual political knowledge. We show that Web surveys contain a source of measurement error as respondents can “Google” the correct answers. This cheating activity is our principal concern. Past efforts are extended by: (1) offering a self-reported estimate of the share of Googling cheaters, (2) showing that the positive effect of education on factual political knowledge is most probably underestimated when cheating occurs, and (3) showing that self-reported cheating activity is inversely related to actual response time. In the concluding section, we discuss the implications of these results and the extent to which cheating can be reduced. The empirical analyses are based on a Danish Web sample from 2012 (N \(=\) 1,509).     

Design‐based Estimators Calibrated on Estimated Totals from Multiple Surveys

The use of auxiliary variables to improve the efficiency of estimators is a well‐known strategy in survey sampling. Typically, the auxiliary variables used are the totals of appropriate measurement that are exactly known from registers or administrative sources. Increasingly, however, these totals are estimated from surveys and are then used to calibrate estimators and improve their efficiency. We consider different types of survey structures and develop design‐based estimators that are calibrated on known as well as estimated totals of auxiliary variables. The optimality properties of these estimators are studied. These estimators can be viewed as extensions of the Montanari generalised regression estimator adapted to the more complex situations. The paper studies interesting special cases to develop insights and guidelines to properly manage the survey‐estimated auxiliary totals.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RELATIVE RISK AVERSION AND THE LEVEL OF EDUCATION: A SURVEY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE DEMAND FOR LIFE INSURANCE

The expected utility hypothesis has been widely used in the construction of economic models and numerous difficulties are encountered in attempting to take into account preferences toward risk in a real‐world setting. More recently, attention has focused on comparative studies in economics and business in an international framework and problems related to the hypothesis of relative risk aversion (RRA). One ambiguous hypothesis is the relationship between the level of RRA and the level of education, which has been found either positive or negative. From a causality point of view, it may be argued that investors with a high level of education are less risk averse, but it may also be argued that less risk‐averse individuals choose to pursue a higher level of education. The purpose of this paper is to survey the empirical literature on this subject. It provides evidence that risk aversion is negatively correlated with higher education and human development. The results have important implications for macroeconomic empirical studies and the demand for financial assets and more specifically on the demand for life insurance. Assuming the same degree of RRA for utility‐maximizing consumers should be limited to homogeneous samples.     

Honest versus Misleading Certification

This paper questions the honesty of third‐party certification in the market for a good whose environmental quality is not observable by consumers. The certifier maximizes a weighted sum of its own revenue and social welfare. The higher the relative weight placed on revenue, the stronger the certifier's incentive to mislead consumers. Certification is analyzed as a costly signaling mechanism that, besides displaying labels, transmits information through market prices. Honest certification requires that prices credibly signal environmental quality to prevent cheating. I show that certification can only be honest when the certifier is driven more by social welfare than by profit. In the reverse case, the certifier cannot help jamming the price signal, thereby granting unreliable labels.     

All time cheaters versus cheaters in distress: An examination of cheating and oil prices in OPEC

This paper investigates the OPEC quota share system and whether there is any pattern to “cheating”. Using threshold cointegration methods, we examine each OPEC member's cheating behavior in periods of rising and falling real oil prices. Most OPEC members behave differently in response to rising oil prices than falling oil prices. For shocks of typical historical size, most members overproduce their quotas regardless of the direction of the real oil prices in the medium to long run. However, in response to large real oil price shocks, most members conform to a “public finance argument” whereby they underproduce their quotas in response to rising oil prices and overproduce in response to falling real oil prices. In an extended model with cheating by Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members, we find no statistically significant relationship between Saudi Arabian cheating and other cheating. The impulse response functions reveal that for typical shocks, neither Saudi Arabia nor other OPEC members absorb cheating by the other party. However, when there is a large incidence of cheating by other OPEC members, Saudi Arabia responds in kind: this forceful response is in line with a tit-for-tat strategy when there is “too much” cheating.     

Do congressional leaders detect and deter cartel cheating? Evidence from committee assignments

Abstract. The present study extends recent work in the public choice literature that suggests that monopoly legislators form cartel-like organizations in an effort to extract greater benefits in the political process. With any cartel organization cheating is expected to arise. If any political cartel (or business cartel) is to be successful, cheating must be detected and punished. Previous work examining the voting behavior and committee placement of Congressional Black Caucus members presents observable evidence of cartel success, but it fails to examine how cheating by individual Congressional Black Caucus members is detected and deterred. This study points out that (1) use of ADA voting records by Democratic House leaders renders “cartel cheating” easily detectable, (2) any observed cheating is punished by Democratic leaders through placement on less desirable House committees, and (3) such a punishment diminishes the “legislative” level of representation that an individual Representative can provide. Received: 29 May 2001 / Accepted: 29 July 2002 The authors thank two anonymous referees of this journal, Amihai Glazer, David Hobson and Troy Gibson for helpful comments. This work was supported through a Business Advisory Council Faculty Scholars Grant.     

Survey Estimates by Calibration on Complex Auxiliary Information

In the last decade, calibration estimation has developed into an important field of research in survey sampling. Calibration is now an important methodological instrument in the production of statistics. Several national statistical agencies have developed software designed to compute calibrated weights based on auxiliary information available in population registers and other sources. This paper reviews some recent progress and offers some new perspectives. Calibration estimation can be used to advantage in a range of different survey conditions. This paper examines several situations, including estimation for domains in one‐phase sampling, estimation for two‐phase sampling, and estimation for two‐stage sampling with integrated weighting. Typical of those situations is complex auxiliary information, a term that we use for information made up of several components. An example occurs when a two‐stage sample survey has information both for units and for clusters of units, or when estimation for domains relies on information from different parts of the population. Complex auxiliary information opens up more than one way of computing the final calibrated weights to be used in estimation. They may be computed in a single step or in two or more successive steps. Depending on the approach, the resulting estimates do differ to some degree. All significant parts of the total information should be reflected in the final weights. The effectiveness of the complex information is mirrored by the variance of the resulting calibration estimator. Its exact variance is not presentable in simple form. Close approximation is possible via the corresponding linearized statistic. We define and use automated linearization as a shortcut in finding the linearized statistic. Its variance is easy to state, to interpret and to estimate. The variance components are expressed in terms of residuals, similar to those of standard regression theory. Visual inspection of the residuals reveals how the different components of the complex auxiliary information interact and work together toward reducing the variance.     

Impact of Management Practices on Persistent and Residual Technical Efficiency – a Study of Swedish pig Farming

Managerial capacity builds over the years and the accumulated knowledge/practice affect the outcome of the period that follows, with long‐run/permanent effects on inefficiency. Therefore, predictions of the influence of managerial capacity on the time‐varying inefficiency, regularly estimated as overall efficiency, may be biased. This study analyzed the influence of farm management practices on both the persistent and residual efficiency, and evaluated how conclusions drawn about the effect of management practices are assessed if overall efficiency, instead of permanent and residual efficiency, is evaluated. Farm‐accounting data of Swedish pig producers and information from a survey related to managerial practices were used. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Post‐Stratification Weighting in Organizational Surveys: A Cross‐Disciplinary Tutorial

Post‐stratification weighting is a technique used in public opinion polling to minimize discrepancies between population parameters and realized sample characteristics. The current paper provides a weighting tutorial to organizational surveyors who may otherwise be unfamiliar with the rationale behind the practice as well as “when and how to do” such weighting. The primary reasons to weight include: [1] reducing the effect of frame, sampling, and nonresponse bias in point estimates, and, relatedly, (2) correcting for aggregation error resulting from over‐ and underrepresentation of constituent groups. We briefly compare and contrast traditions within public opinion and organizational polling contexts and present a hybrid taxonomy of sampling procedures that organizational surveyors may find useful in situating their survey efforts within a methodological framework. Next, we extend the existing HRM literature focused on survey nonresponse to a broader lens concerned with population misrepresentation. It is from this broadened methodological framework that we introduce the practice of weighting as a remedial strategy for misrepresentation. We then provide sample weighting algorithms and standard error corrections that can be applied to organizational survey data and make our data and procedures available to individuals who may wish to use our examples as they learn “how to weight.” © 2018 Wiley ­Periodicals, Inc.     

Small businesses and the environment: turning over a new leaf?

Previous studies on the environmental practices of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK and beyond have portrayed owner‐managers as laggards who underplay their firm's environmental impacts and resist environmental management due to its perceived cost. Yet a recent cross‐sector survey of 220 UK SMEs suggests that this intransigent stance may be slowly changing. Responses indicate a high percentage of owner‐managers actively involved in recycling, energy efficiency, responsible buying and selling, and efforts to reduce their carbon emissions. Owner‐managers saw it as their responsibility to help solve environmental problems and were reportedly willing to accept the costs of tougher environmental regulations and taxation. Business owners were motivated not just by the ‘push’ of legislation and environmental concern but by the ‘pull’ of potential cost savings, new customers, higher staff retention and good publicity for their firms. The survey also found that owner‐managers had resonance with the Stern Review's (2006) conclusions that the benefits of strong early action on climate change outweigh the costs, and that a transition to a low‐carbon economy will bring opportunities for business growth. This indicates that SMEs may be coming round to the idea that there is a business case for sustainability, although there is still some scepticism on the overall profitability of environmental action. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

A survey technique for estimating the proportion and sensitivity in a dichotomous finite population

In this paper, a simple survey technique to measure the sensitivity of survey issues is presented. It can be applied to estimate the population proportion as well as the probability that a respondent truthfully states that he or she bears a sensitive character when experienced in a direct response survey. An unbiased estimator of mean square error for direct response survey is obtainable so as to be able to judge the effect on the accuracy in estimation. It is also found that the proposed technique is more efficient than some traditional techniques. A simple extension for polychotomous situations can be developed as well.     

Perceptions of High‐Involvement Work Practices,Person‐Organization Fit,and Burnout: A Time‐Lagged Study of Health Care Employees

Previous research demonstrates that high‐involvement work practices (HIWPs) may be associated with burnout (emotional exhaustion and depersonalization); however, to date, the process through which HIWPs influence burnout is not clear. This article examined the impact of HIWPs on long‐term burnout (emotional exhaustion and depersonalization) by considering the mediating role of person‐organization fit (P‐O fit) in this relationship. The study used a time‐lagged design and was conducted in a Canadian general hospital among health care personnel. Findings from structural equation modeling (N = 185) revealed that perceived HIWPs were positively associated with P‐O fit. There was no direct effect of HIWPs on burnout; rather, P‐O fit fully mediated the relationship between employee perceptions of HIWPs and burnout. This study fills a void in the HR and burnout literature by demonstrating the role that P‐O fit has in explaining how HIWPs alleviate emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Mixture of Truthful–Untruthful Responses in Public Surveys

When sensitive issues are surveyed, collecting truthful data and obtaining reliable estimates of population parameters is a persistent problem in many fields of applied research mostly in sociological, economic, demographic, ecological and medical studies. In this context, and moving from the so‐called negative survey, we consider the problem of estimating the proportion of population units belonging to the categories of a sensitive variable when collected data are affected by measurement errors produced by untruthful responses. An extension of the negative survey approach is proposed herein in order to allow respondents to release a true response. The proposal rests on modelling the released data with a mixture of truthful and untruthful responses that allows researchers to obtain an estimate of the proportions as well as the probability of receiving the true response by implementing the EM‐algorithm. We describe the estimation procedure and carry out a simulation study to assess the performance of the EM estimates vis‐à‐vis certain benchmark values and the estimates obtained under the traditional data‐collection approach based on direct questioning that ignores the presence of misreporting due to untruthful responding. Simulation findings provide evidence on the accuracy of the estimates and permit us to appreciate the improvements that our approach can produce in public surveys, particularly in election opinion polls, when the hidden vote problem is present.