NONRESPONSE BIAS AND BUSINESS TURNOVER RATES - THE CASE OF THE CHARACTERISTICS OF BUSINESS OWNERS SURVEY

This article considers the problem of nonresponse in the Characteristi cs of Business Owners survey. It presents a novel approach for assessi ng the extent to which nonresponse is nonignorable. The method exploit s the fact that all of the owners of multiowner firms were surveyed. T he article uses information received from a responding owner to derive inferences about a nonresponding owner of the same firm. It provides evidence that nonrespondents are more likely than respondents to disco ntinue ownership. The article estimates a variety of models of the joi nt process of ownership survival and survey response and quantifies th e effects of ignoring nonresponse.