The information method: Theory and application

Arbeitspapier

When estimating the extent of e.g. excess use of public benefits one traditionally uses direct monitoring. Such direct estimates are afflicted with an intrinsic negative bias since you only count what you find. This paper presents and assesses an alternative intuitive, yet relatively unexplored, approach that may reduce the bias by making use of the individual's own response to information of increased monitoring. Through an extensive randomized social experiment we apply the method to one particular Swedish public benefit: Parental Benefit for Temporary Childcare. In our view the application was successful: the results are interpretable and we are able to surface more hidden excess use through the information method. As a rough estimate we find that the information based estimate of excess use is 40 percent higher than the corresponding estimate based on ordinary random monitoring (22.5 percent compared to 16 percent). The method is potentially applicable to a large number of related fields, such as e.g. tax evasion and insurance fraud.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Working Paper ; No. 2007:17

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Model Construction and Estimation ; Field Experiments ; Social Security and Public Pensions
• Subject: Monitoring ; Social insurance ; Randomized experiments ; Sozialtransfer ; Wirtschaftskriminalität ; Kontrolle ; Soziales Verhalten ; Lohnersatzleistungen ; Elternzeit ; Test ; Schweden

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Engström, Per ; Hesselius, Patrik
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation (IFAU)
• (where): Uppsala
• (when): 2007

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/78686
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET