Indirect Monetary Incentives for the 2004 ARMS Phase III Core

The United States Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service conducts the annual Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) Phase III. Part of this survey’s sample uses a sixteen-page core questionnaire with mail-out/mail-back data collection and face-to-face nonresponse follow-up. Both prepaid and promised indirect monetary incentives (i.e., $20 ATM cards) were used on the 2004 ARMS in order to increase response rates and to reduce costly face-toface follow-up interviews. The results showed that both the prepaid and promised incentives significantly increased the mail and overall response rates, with the prepaid incentives performing somewhat better. The incentives also succeeded in reducing the overall data collection cost