Eliciting People's First-Order Concerns: Text Analysis of Open-Ended Survey Questions
AEA Papers and Proceedings
vol. 112,
May 2022
(pp. 163-69)
Abstract
We illustrate the design and use of open-ended survey questions to elicit people's first-order concerns on policies. Closed-ended questions are the backbone of surveys but may prime respondents to select some answers and may omit relevant options. Open-ended questions that do not constrain respondents with specific answer choices are a valuable tool for eliciting first-order thinking. We discuss three text analysis methods to analyze open-ended questions' answers and apply them to surveys on income and estate taxation. People's key concerns relate mostly to distribution issues, fairness, and trust in government rather than to efficiency, and they exhibit large partisan gaps.Citation
Ferrario, Beatrice, and Stefanie Stantcheva. 2022. "Eliciting People's First-Order Concerns: Text Analysis of Open-Ended Survey Questions." AEA Papers and Proceedings, 112: 163-69. DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20221071Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- C83 Survey Methods; Sampling Methods
- D12 Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
- D63 Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
- D72 Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
- Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification