Here is another reason, that just occured to me, why survey
questions may not help us as much as we would like even on those
questions where they are relevant. In economics we are typically
interested in what matters at the margin and this may be difficult to
discover in a survey question.
Take Robin's question about why people go to school. The answer
could truthfully be because my friends are going/because my father said
I should etc. while at the same time it could be also be true that an
increase in the wage rate reduces the number of people going to school.
It seems to me that this may be difficult to pick up in survey questions
though I suppose we could ask questions like - What factors would raise
the probability that you would attend/not attend school? - this sort of
counter-factual, however, is a more difficult question to answer than
the factual about why you did what you did but the answer to the latter
question is an average while we are interested in the marginal.
Alex
P.S. Yes, economists are inconsistent.
--
Dr. Alexander Tabarrok
Vice President and Director of Research
The Independent Institute
100 Swan Way
Oakland, CA, 94621-1428
Tel. 510-632-1366, FAX: 510-568-6040
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
