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Unbiased and Accurate: Measuring Sensitive Outcomes Through Ballot-Bag Surveys
Written with Bruno Crepon and Jules Gazeaud
Prevailing methods for measuring sensitive outcomes confront researchers with an inherent bias-variance trade-off: direct questioning is prone to a sensitivity bias, while indirect methods such as list experiments are substantially less precise. We introduce the ballot-bag, a novel technique that relaxes this trade-off by mitigating bias in direct questioning while improving precision over indirect methods. In a field experiment in Egypt, where direct questions on irregular migration are biased, ballot-bag estimates closely align with those from a list experiment but exhibit significantly lower variance. Consequently, treatment effects are highly significant via the ballot-bag and not via the list experiment.
Date:
11 February 2026, 12:30
Venue:
Manor Road Building, Manor Road OX1 3UQ
Venue Details:
Seminar Room G (third floor)
Speaker:
Ahmed Elsayed (The American University in Cairo)
Organising department:
Department of Economics
Organisers:
Niccolo Meriggi (University of Oxford),
Stefano Caria (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address:
suzanne.george@economics.ox.ac.uk
Part of:
CSAE Lunchtime Seminars
Booking required?:
Not required
Audience:
Public
Editors:
Suzanne George,
Fiona Morsia,
Claire Goode
