[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-1-en-105":3,"doc-seo-301932-105":53,"doc-detail-301932-en":126},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,14,19,24,29,34,39,44,49],{"id":8,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":11,"show_sort_weight":12,"slug":13},11,1,"Template","Presentations",90,"presentations",{"id":15,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":16,"show_sort_weight":17,"slug":18},12,"Resumes",80,"resumes",{"id":20,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":21,"show_sort_weight":22,"slug":23},14,"Invoices",70,"invoices",{"id":25,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":26,"show_sort_weight":27,"slug":28},15,"Posters",60,"posters",{"id":30,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":31,"show_sort_weight":32,"slug":33},16,"Social Media",50,"social-media",{"id":35,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":36,"show_sort_weight":37,"slug":38},17,"Forms",40,"forms",{"id":40,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":41,"show_sort_weight":42,"slug":43},18,"Letters",30,"letters",{"id":45,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":46,"show_sort_weight":47,"slug":48},21,"Paper Templates",5,"papers-templates",{"id":50,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":51,"show_sort_weight":4,"slug":52},158,"General","general-158",{"code":4,"msg":54,"data":55},"ok",{"site_id":56,"language":57,"slug":58,"title":59,"keywords":60,"description":61,"schema_data":62,"social_meta":119,"head_meta":121,"extra_data":123,"updated_unix":125},105,"en","what-do-survey-data-tell-us-about-us-businesses-nber-working-paper-26063-abstract-and-introduction","What Do Survey Data Tell Us about US Businesses? - NBER Working Paper 26063 - Abstract and Introduction","","This paper examines the reliability of survey data on business incomes, valuations, and rates of return, which are key inputs for studies of wealth inequality and entrepreneurial choice. It compares survey responses from business owners with administrative tax records, brokered private business sales, and public company filings, identifying problems from nonrepresentative samples and measurement errors across surveys, subgroups, and years. Economically meaningful discrepancies are found, motivating investigations and correction proposals for future survey designs.",{"@graph":63,"@context":118},[64,80,101],{"@type":65,"itemListElement":66},"BreadcrumbList",[67,71,74,77],{"item":68,"name":69,"@type":70,"position":9},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":72,"name":10,"@type":70,"position":73},"https://docshare.wps.com/template/",2,{"item":75,"name":11,"@type":70,"position":76},"https://docshare.wps.com/template/presentations/",3,{"item":78,"name":59,"@type":70,"position":79},"https://docshare.wps.com/template/what-do-survey-data-tell-us-about-us-businesses-nber-working-paper-26063-abstract-and-introduction/301932/",4,{"url":78,"name":59,"@type":81,"image":82,"author":87,"headline":59,"publisher":90,"fileFormat":93,"inLanguage":57,"description":61,"dateModified":94,"datePublished":95,"encodingFormat":93,"isAccessibleForFree":96,"interactionStatistic":97},"DigitalDocument",{"url":83,"@type":84,"width":85,"height":86},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/what-do-survey-data-tell-us-about-us-businesses-nber-working-paper-26063-abstract-and-introduction/301932.png","ImageObject",442,249,{"name":88,"@type":89},"Quinn Holloway","Person",{"url":68,"name":91,"@type":92},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-09-23","2026-09-19",true,{"@type":98,"interactionType":99,"userInteractionCount":9},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":100},"ViewAction",{"@type":102,"mainEntity":103},"FAQPage",[104,110,114],{"name":105,"@type":106,"acceptedAnswer":107},"What does the paper evaluate about survey data?","Question",{"text":108,"@type":109},"It evaluates how reliably survey data measure business incomes, valuations, and rates of return, which are essential inputs for research on wealth inequality and entrepreneurial choice.","Answer",{"name":111,"@type":106,"acceptedAnswer":112},"Which data sources does the paper compare against surveys?",{"text":113,"@type":109},"It compares survey responses with administrative tax records, brokered private business sales, and publicly traded company filings to assess discrepancies.",{"name":115,"@type":106,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What do the authors find about discrepancies in the statistics?",{"text":117,"@type":109},"The authors find discrepancies that are economically relevant for the statistics of interest and identify reasons behind them, along with proposed corrections for future survey designs.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":78,"og:type":120,"og:title":59,"og:site_name":91,"og:description":61},"article",{"robots":122,"canonical":78},"index,follow",{"doc_id":124,"site_id":56},301932,1790141737,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":127},{"doc_id":124,"user_id":128,"nickname":88,"user_avatar":129,"doc_module":9,"category_id":8,"category_name":11,"doc_title":59,"doc_description":61,"doc_content":130,"file_id":131,"file_url":132,"file_type":133,"file_size":134,"view_count":73,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":9,"is_downloadable":9,"audit_status":9,"page_count":135,"language":136,"language_code":57,"site_id":56,"html_lang":57,"table_of_contents":137,"faqs":138,"seo_title":139,"seo_description":61,"update_tm":140,"read_time":141},2336474466712,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_a8503ba1806abce46bf441b54a3ca4cd","NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES  \nWHAT DO SURVEY DATA TELL US ABOUT US BUSINESSES?  \nAnmol Bhandari  \nSerdar Birinci  \nEllen McGrattan  \nKurt See  \nWorking Paper 26063  \n[http://www.nber.org/papers/w26063](http://www.nber.org/papers/w26063)  \nNATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH  \n1050 Massachusetts Avenue  \nCambridge, MA 02138  \nJuly 2019, Revised January 2020  \nAn online Appendix (Bhandari et al. 2019) is available [at www.minneapolisfed.org/research/sr/](at www.minneapolisfed.org/research/sr/)[ ](at www.minneapolisfed.org/research/sr/)[sr578.pdf. Bhandari and See acknowledge support from the Heller-Hurwicz Economic Institute](sr578.pdf. Bhandari and See acknowledge support from the Heller-Hurwicz Economic Institute), and McGrattan acknowledges support from the NSF. For helpful comments, we thank seminar and conference participants at Colorado, Minnesota, Yale, Autonoma, ASU, NYU, Columbia, UCSB, SITE, CMU, Midwest Macro, LAMES, Michigan, WU in St. Louis, Stanford, Notre Dame, and California Macroeconomics Association. For excellent editorial assistance, we thank Joan Gieseke. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the Federal Reserve System, the Bank of Canada, or the National Bureau of Economic Research.  \nNBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.  \n© 2019 by Anmol Bhandari, Serdar Birinci, Ellen McGrattan, and Kurt See. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source.  \nWhat Do Survey Data Tell Us about US Businesses?  \nAnmol Bhandari, Serdar Birinci, Ellen McGrattan, and Kurt See NBER Working Paper No. 26063  \nJuly 2019, Revised January 2020 JEL No. C83,E22,H25  \nABSTRACT  \nThis paper examines the reliability of survey data on business incomes, valuations, and rates of return, which are key inputs for studies of wealth inequality and entrepreneurial choice. We compare survey responses of business owners with available data from administrative tax records, brokered private business sales, and publicly traded company filings and document problems due to nonrepresentative samples and measurement errors across several surveys, subsamples, and years. We find that the discrepancies are economically relevant for the statistics of interest. We investigate reasons for these discrepancies and propose corrections for future survey designs.  \nAnmol Bhandari Department of Economics University of Minnesota 1925 Fourth Street South Minneapolis, MN 55455 and NBER [bhandari@umn.edu](bhandari@umn.edu)  \nSerdar Birinci  \nUniversity of Minnesota One Federal Reserve Bank Plaza St. Louis, MO 63102 [birin001@umn.edu](birin001@umn.edu)  \nEllen McGrattan Department of Economics University of Minnesota 4-101 Hanson Hall 1925 4th St S Minneapolis, MN 55455 and NBER  \n[erm@umn.edu](erm@umn.edu)  \nKurt See  \nUniversity of Minnesota 234 Wellington Street Ottawa K1A 069 Canada [seexx028@umn.edu](seexx028@umn.edu)  \nA data appendix is available at [http://www.nber.org/data-appendix/w26063](http://www.nber.org/data-appendix/w26063)[ ](http://www.nber.org/data-appendix/w26063)A Replication files is available at [http://users.cla.umn.edu/](http://users.cla.umn.edu/)~erm/data/bbms/  \n1 Introduction  \nRepresentative surveys of households and firms have become an important source of data on business owners and their activities and are now used extensively in economic research. This paper examines the reliability of data on business incomes, valuations, and rates of return based on surveys—key statistics for studies of wealth inequality and entrepreneurial choice. To do this, we first compare survey responses to questions about businesses with c","cbCaictmVz09MeB3","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaictmVz09MeB3","pdf",454389,25,"English","# Abstract\n## Introduction","[{\"question\":\"What does the paper evaluate about survey data?\",\"answer\":\"It evaluates how reliably survey data measure business incomes, valuations, and rates of return, which are essential inputs for research on wealth inequality and entrepreneurial choice.\"},{\"question\":\"Which data sources does the paper compare against surveys?\",\"answer\":\"It compares survey responses with administrative tax records, brokered private business sales, and publicly traded company filings to assess discrepancies.\"},{\"question\":\"What do the authors find about discrepancies in the statistics?\",\"answer\":\"The authors find discrepancies that are economically relevant for the statistics of interest and identify reasons behind them, along with proposed corrections for future survey designs.\"}]","What Do Survey Data Tell Us about US Businesses? - NBER Working Paper 26063 - Abstract and Introduction | PDF",1789786925,9]