Explaining Income Nonresponse – A Case Study by means of the British Household Panel Study (BHPS)

Many validation studies deal with item nonresponse and measurement error in earning data. In this paper, we explore motives of respondents for the failure to reveal earnings using the British Household Panel Study (BHPS). The BHPS collects socio-economic information of private households in Great Britain. We explain the evolution of income-nonresponse in the BHPS and demonstrate the importance of a discrimination between refusing the income-statement or don’t know. This study is done during my fellowship at the University Essex and is part of the ECASS Project “Respondent Behaviour in Panel Studies”. In particular I would like to thank Heather Laurie, Cheti Nicoletti and Peter Lynn (ISER, Essex) as well as Gert G. Wagner (DIW Berlin and Berlin University of Technology, TUB) for helpful comments. The usual disclaimer applies.