Purpose of the study to be discussed: Statistics Norway is currently developing a mixed mode Consumer Expenditure/Household Budget Survey which combines transaction data collected from respondent’s purchases with credit-/debit card and bank account information with an Internet and paper diary. This survey, which traditionally is based meticulous diary reports over a 14 days period, has suffered a high response burden and low response rate. Coding also made the survey expensive. By offering respondents an option where card and bank transactions automatically are transferred into the diary, we want to reduce response burden and processing costs. Lower response burden should also have a positive effect on the response rate and response quality.
Approach and findings so far: The planned mixed mode design will be explained and discussed. In September a pilot testing the functionality and usability of the new system will be conducted. Results will be presented at the workshop. We have also run a survey which evaluates respondents’ willingness to share card and bank transactions with Statistics Norway. Just below 40 % said that they would allow us to do so. The argument that this would reduce response burden had a certain effect on this figure. Else age seems to be a key factor. We want to discuss which implications the pilot results and willingness survey should have on the final design of the survey.
Originality: To our knowledge, combining transaction data with survey data in this way has not been done before. Hence, finding relevant research literature is a topic of discussion in itself.
Implications: The planned design combines “big data” with survey data in a way which may be decisive for the future of diary based data collections. The design will also be a source of research into the effects of mixed mode designs.