The MacroMonitor Methodology
Questionnaire Design
Consumer Financial Decisions (CFD) fields the MacroMonitor questionnaire every two years, from April to August of even-numbered years of the survey cycle. We add, delete, or expand specific questions (in many cases from client requests and suggestions) for each upcoming survey cycle to maintain relevant, comprehensive coverage. To allow for trendability, the core design of the more than 90-page questionnaire has remained consistent for more than 30 years.
Data-Collection Design and Implementation
We have drawn and designed two samples so that more than 1,500 of the completed interviews will be affluent households (households with an annual income of at least $100,000 or assets of $500,000 or more, excluding the value of the primary home). The process for recruiting survey respondents follows:
- We recruit respondents by telephone using a random-digit-dial (RDD) methodology, which allows us potentially to reach all numbers, listed and unlisted, in the contiguous United States. For the affluent oversample, we concentrate on high-income areas based on estimated income at the exchange level or smaller.
- We carefully screen potential respondents to ensure that participation is by the head of household "who makes most of the major financial decisions for the household." We also screen the potential affluent respondent to ensure that the household has an annual income of at least $100,000 or assets of $500,000 or more.
- We send a questionnaire packet via Priority mail to people in households that qualify who agree to participate. Participants receive a small cash incentive with the questionnaire packet and have the promise of another when they return the completed questionnaire. As an additional incentive, we offer affluent respondents an optional four-page report—the Personal Financial Profile—that compares some of their responses to those of other respondents like them.
- We send reminder postcards and make several follow-up telephone calls at two-week intervals to encourage participation.
- We typically receive about a 40% response rate using this mixed-mode methodology (telephone solicitation for a mail-and-return questionnaire)—a considerably higher response rate than those of either mail panels or straight telephone methodologies for surveys of this length.
Unique to the MacroMonitor, we ask respondents for actual dollar values for products owned, balances outstanding, and monthly payments. From these responses, we create summary variables such as net worth, investable assets, annual savings, and outstanding debt and include the variables in the final data. This methodology gives us and our clients the ability to create unlimited variables.
For more details and additional information, call us at +1 609 734 2048.
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