Reliability of Recall in Agricultural Data

Beegle, Kathleen ; Carletto, Calogero ; Himelein, Kristen

关键词: AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES;    AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS;    AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION;    AGRICULTURAL INFORMATION;    AGRICULTURAL INNOVATION;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-5671
RP-ID  :  WPS5671

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Despite the importance of agriculture toeconomic development, and a vast accompanying literature onthe subject, little research has been done on the quality ofthe underlying data. Due to survey logistics, agriculturaldata are usually collected by asking respondents to recallthe details of events occurring during past agriculturalseasons that took place a number of months prior to theinterview. This gap can lead to recall bias in reported dataon agricultural activities. The problem is furthercomplicated when interviews are conducted over the course ofseveral months, thus leading to recall of variable length.To test for such recall bias, the length of time betweenharvest and interview is examined for three Africancountries with respect to several common agricultural inputand harvest measures. The analysis shows little evidence ofrecall bias impacting data quality. There is some indicationthat more salient events are less subject to recall decay.Overall, the results allay some concerns about the qualityof some types of agricultural data collected through recallover lengthy periods.