Effect of Mode Choice and Respondent Characteristics on Data Quality: Profiling Respondents to BEA's Annual Survey of Foreign Direct Investment in the United States

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) conducts the Annual Survey of Foreign Direct Investment in the United States, a mandatory enterprise level survey that collects information on the finances and operations of foreign-owned U.S. businesses. Respondents submit data by mail, facsimile, and BEA's electronic filing system (eFile). Over the last decade BEA has made incremental efforts to increase the eFile usage rate among respondents. The literature indicates that business characteristics and the mode of response can influence the quality of the data reported. This study profiles respondents to BEA's direct investment surveys by collection mode with the goal of better understanding respondent characteristics and mode choices. The paper analyzes the effect of survey response mode and respondent characteristics on the quality of the data reported to BEA. The paper aims to motivate future research that leads to better data collection strategies to increase response rates, improve data quality, and lower survey costs.