Consumer Expenditure Surveys Methods Workshop: Globals Page 1 of 6 

Global Questions in the 

Consumer Expenditure Surveys Program

1. Background Statement 

Averaging 65 minutes, the length of the CEQ is thought to be one of the primary factors 

related to measurement error, respondent burden and response rates. The length is a result of both 

the wide range of expenditure categories and the number of specific questions included in each 

category. For example, within the clothing section there are 17 questions about specific types of 

clothing (e.g., pants, dresses, footwear), and as many as 6 detailed questions for each reported 

purchase (e.g., the age and gender of the person for whom the item was purchased, and whether 

sales tax was included). 

When considering alternate CEQ designs, a common suggestion is to ‘break up the 

interview’ by asking each respondent only a subset of the expenditure categories. This option is 

limited by the requirement from CE data users, documented at the 2010 Data Users Forum, for 

the CE to produce total expenditure estimates for each household. One way to meet this user 

requirement while reducing questionnaire length is to replace some of the detailed questions with 

broader questions to capture total expenditures for a given expenditure category. These questions, 

often referred to as global questions, would ask about an expenditure category from a cumulative 

standpoint, rather than as a detailed series of questions about specific expenditure types within the 

larger category. For example, rather than asking individual questions about pants, dresses and 

footwear, a global question would ask for the total amount spent on clothing. 

Although there are several ways that global questions could be incorporated into the CEQ, 

the most promising option is to use a global question to summarize expenditure categories or 

logical subsets of the category (e.g. clothing, footwear). We will assume for this discussion that 

global questions would be used within a redesigned CE that meets CPI and other data user 

requirements. 
Consumer Expenditure Surveys Methods Workshop: Globals Page 2 of 6 

2. Relevant Work 

Internal Research

Global questions have been a topic of interest within the CE for many years. Though 

there has not been any large-scale testing to evaluate the efficiency of globals, several smaller 

scale projects have explored the impact of globals on reporting rates and interview length. The 

most substantial effort included research on the cognitive processes respondents use to answer 

global questions (RTI, 2000). This work concluded that there are several complex cognitive steps 

respondents must perform to respond to global questions: decomposing the global category into 

subcategories, searching memory for and retrieving expenditures, determining whether the 

expenditures fit the specified time frame, and then mentally summing the expenditure amounts for 

each subcategory. RTI recommended a heavy reliance on the CEQ information book, which 

provides respondents with lists of the subcategories in each expenditure category, and having 

interviewers help respondents with their mathematical calculations. These suggestions imply that 

without aid, respondents may not be able to arrive at accurate responses in response to global 

questions on their own. While the RTI research noted cognitive difficulties experienced by some 

respondents in computing responses to global questions, they did not attempt to validate the 

accuracy of those responses, nor did they collect any data outside of the laboratory environment.

Although the CEQ does not currently include global questions, there are several expense 

pattern questions (i.e. “What has been your usual weekly expense on groceries?”) which can 

provide useful information on the topic of global questions. Since the CEQ expense pattern items 

ask about expenses also collected in the CED (food at home, food away from home), we can 

compare responses with the detailed CED data. Weber (2002) and Henderson (2009) compared 

the CEQ expense pattern questions and associated detailed CED data and found that the CEQ 

expense pattern questions were consistently higher than the detailed CED data.1

 

1 In both the CEQ and CED interview portions, the question about food for home consumption is followed by a 

question asking about how much of the reported grocery expense was for nonfood items. A possible explanation for 

the CEQ-CED discrepancy is that respondents remember the total purchase but never "encode" the amount of that 

purchase going toward non-food items.

 Despite 

conceptual differences in the between the surveys (e.g. expense patterns versus individual 

expenditures), the differences raise significant concerns about the quality of data collected using 

global questions. 
Consumer Expenditure Surveys Methods Workshop: Globals Page 3 of 6 

Battistin (2003) cites the methodological differences of asking detailed, rather than global, 

questions as one possible explanation for discrepancies between the CEQ and CED surveys in 

reported expenditures on non-durables (generally defined as items used once or with a lifespan of 

less than three years). While the CED collects detailed data about non-durable expenditures such 

as tobacco products and food and nonalcoholic beverages consumed at home, and then sums these 

up to get total spending, the CEQ asks about "usual expenses" for the last quarter, a global 

retrospective question about total spending on these items. When generating age profiles of log 

non-durable expenditures, Battistin found that the profile obtained using data from the CED 

detailed questions is always below the profile obtained using data from the corresponding CEQ 

global question. In other words, the expenditures reported using detailed questions are always 

below those obtained using a global question, paralleling the results reported at BLS (Henderson 

2009; Weber 2002). However, it should be noted that in the CEQ, global responses to Food 

Away from Home have usually been lower than the specific responses from the Diary. 

Recent research by Edgar (2009) reinforces the concerns about the quality of data 

collected from CEQ questions. The author found that respondents used generalizations, 

inferences from a single episode, or even guesses, when providing their answers, providing reason 

to suspect substantial, and possibly systematic, measurement error. This research lends support to 

the conclusion that the expenditure patterns (and perhaps globals by extension) are not a reliable 

method for obtaining accurate expenditure information. 

In 2007, a small telephone study asked respondents one of two sets of global questions 

about clothing purchases, and followed those questions with the detailed items currently used in 

the CEQ (Goldenberg & Steinberg, forthcoming). One global question set asked about the entire 

clothing category in three parts (questions on clothing, on footwear, and on accessories) and the 

other divided the category into eight topics (e.g., outerwear, business clothing, athletic wear, 

footwear, etc.). Responses to both sets of global questions were consistently higher than the 

detailed questions, but the difference was only statistically significant for the eight-part global 

questions. Although this research cannot indicate whether the global questions are over-estimates 

or the detailed items are underestimates of the true values, the results do support concern about 

the quality of data produced by global questions, especially when considered in the context of 

using them in replacement of, or even conjunction with, detailed questions. 

One application of global questions is as filter question which ask respondents about a 

broad category of items to determine eligibility for the items that follow it. Kreuter (2009) 
Consumer Expenditure Surveys Methods Workshop: Globals Page 4 of 6 

explored the accuracy of filter questions when presented in different formats and concluded that 

the format of the filter question impacted the measurement of items, with some formats leading to 

relatively inaccurate responses. The CEQ currently includes screener questions in some 

expenditure categories. Safir and Goldenberg (2008) found that there were significant differences 

in expenditure reporting between telephone and face-to-face respondents for filter questions, 

leading to further concerns about accuracy. These findings about filter questions may generalize 

to the broader category of global questions, suggesting that we need to think carefully about not 

only the use of global questions, but also how we present them to respondents.

External Research

 The literature presents a mixed picture of the advantages and disadvantages of using 

global questions over more detailed questions. In general, studies show global questions to result 

in less reporting, but not necessarily less accurate responses than more detailed questions. For 

example, from a reporting accuracy standpoint, Belli et al. (2000) examined behavioral frequency 

reports, and noted that detailed questions may be more susceptible than global questions to 

double-counting behaviors. Supporting this broad conclusion, Beatty and Maitland (2008) 

observed a general trend for global questions to be associated with lower frequency reports than 

their detailed counterparts, but not in every case, leading the authors to conclude that detailed 

questions may be preferable under some, but not all, circumstances. They did not provide 

guidance on the criteria that should be considered when determining when to use global questions 

versus detailed ones. Additionally, the finding of less accurate reporting (i.e., due to more double 

counting) in response to detailed questions is not consistently seen across studies, or even across 

different interview topics. While Menon (1997) finds that for regular behaviors, detailed 

questions may interfere with the response process, the author also cites evidence that detailed 

questions have a positive effect for reports of irregular behaviors. 

The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) asks global questions on several topics also 

collected in the CEQ. Charles et al. (2006) compared PSID results with the more detailed items 

in the CEQ and found that some categories of expenditures (total food, health care, education, 

child care) were higher than CEQ reports, with food away from home much higher than CEQ. It 

should be noted, however, that total food and food away from home are not very detailed items in 

the CEQ, so they aren’t particularly good cases for assessing differences between global and 
Consumer Expenditure Surveys Methods Workshop: Globals Page 5 of 6 

detailed questions. On the other hand, some PSID questions yielded reports that were lower 

(transportation) or the same (housing) as the CEQ. 

 When looking at assessments of activity survey, Sternfeld et al. (2000) note relatively low 

correlations between global questions and more detailed assessments, suggesting that respondents 

may use different constructs for responding to these two types of measures. A recent paper by Xu 

and Schwarz (2009) suggests that global memories are consistent with expectations rather than 

actual experiences. Additionally, although global questions have been found to require less 

administration time, Beatty, Fowler and Cosenza (2006) report that global questions may be more 

difficult than detailed questions for the interviewer to administer. 

3. Key Issues

Global questions are appealing in that may allow a redesigned CEQ which meets data 

users needs by providing estimates of total expenditures while allowing respondents to receive 

only a subset of the interview, but the quality of the data may questionable, particularly in 

comparison with those collected using the current detailed questions. 

4. Discussion Points 

We seek recommendations for both for research that could be conducted to explore the 

potential use of global questions in the CEQ and alternative designs for the CE Surveys. In the 

discussion of a redesign model for CE, the following questions related to global questions might 

be addressed:

1. How accurate are responses to global questions? 

2. Does accuracy vary across expenditure categories?

3. Can global questions obtain data that are accurate and reliable enough for use by the 

CE?

4. Detailed questions are known to have measurement error, particularly associated with 

recall. Do global questions have different sources of measurement error? What issues 

should be considered when combing data from detailed question and global questions 

to produce estimates of total expenditures? 

5. What should the next steps be for research on this issue for a possible change in CE 

design? 
Consumer Expenditure Surveys Methods Workshop: Globals Page 6 of 6 

6. How would you design a survey, or set of surveys, to collect detailed monthly data on 

a comprehensive range of expenditures? The proposed design should address global 

questions as well as other relevant survey design issues, while meeting the

requirements specified in the CPI Requirements Document. 

5. References

Battistin, E. (2003) Errors in Survey Reports of Consumption Expenditures. Working Paper 

W03/07, Institute for Fiscal Studies, London. 

Beatty, P., Cosenza, C. & Fowler, J. (2006). Experiments on the Structure and Specificity of 

Complex Survey Questions. American Statistical Association: Proceedings of the Section on 

Survey Research Methods: 4034-4040. 

Beatty, P. & Maitland, A. (2008). The accuracy of Global vs. Decomposed Behavioral Frequency 

Questions. Presented at the 2008 American Association for Public Opinion Research 

Conference, New Orleans, LA. 

Belli, R. F., Schwarz, N., Singer, E., & Talarico, J. (2000). Decomposition can harm the accuracy 

of behavioral frequency reports. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 14, 295-308. 

Charles, K. K., Danziger, S., Li, G., & Schoeni, R. (2006). Studying Consumption with the 

Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Population Studies Center Research Report 06-590. Ann 

Arbor: University of Michigan. 

Edgar, J. (2009). What does ‘usual’ usually mean? Presented at the 2009 American Associate for 

Public Opinion Research Conference, Hollywood FL. 

Goldenberg, K., & Steinberg, B. (forthcoming). Analysis of 2007 JPSM practicum project. 

Internal report, Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Henderson, S. (2009). Comparisons of CEQ and CED data. Internal email, September 28, 2009. 

Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Kreuter F., McCulloch S., and Presser S. (2009): Filter Questions in Interleafed versus Grouped 

Format: Effects on Respondents and Interviewers. Paper presented at the Annual Conference 

of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. 

Menon, G. (1997). Are the Parts Better than the Whole? The Effects of Decompositional 

Questions on Judgments of Frequent Behaviors. Journal of Marketing Research , 32, 335-

346. 

RTI (2000). CE Interview Global Questions Research: BLS Conference Presentation Report. RTI 

Project No. 07624.000. 

Safir, A. & Goldenberg, K. (2008). Telephone Effects in the Consumer Expenditure Quarterly 

Interview Survey. Internal BLS report, August 29, 2008. 

Sternfeld, B., Cauley, J., Harlow, S., Liu, G., & Lee, M. (2000). Assessment of Physical Activity 

with a Single Global Question in a Large, Multiethnic Sample of Midlife Women. American 

Journal of Epidemiology, 152

Weber, W. (2002). CE Diary food-at-home “global-detailed” comparisons: Interim report. 

Internal BLS Report., May 31, 2002. 

(7).

Xu, J. & Schwarz, N. (2009). Do We Really Need a Reason to Indulge? Journal of Marketing 

Research 46, 25-36.