Sources of Bias in the Recall of Self‐Generated Data: The Role of Anchoring1
基于280家企业的面板数据，检验了自生成就业数据的可靠性，并分析了回忆偏差的三种来源：受访者特征、企业特征和锚定效应，发现增长型企业倾向于低估自身增长。
This study examines two issues. First, we assess the reliability of employment data self‐generated by respondents using a survey panel of 280 firms surveyed in 1999 and again in 2002. Our results show that there is a close correlation between self‐generated and archival secondary data. Second, we test for bias in the recall of previous years' employment levels and the sources of such bias. We assess three reasons for recall bias: respondent‐level factors; firm‐level factors; and anchoring. Our regression results indicate that: owners and new respondents; those in firms that changed legal status and/or location; those in smaller firms; and those in growing or declining firms were biased in their recall of prior employment. In addition, growing firms tended to underestimate their growth, which points to anchoring as an explanation for these biases. These biases imply that we have to be careful in delineating performance measures and cautious about how we interpret self‐generated managerial information.