From deliberate sample to representative sample: pilot study for the BER inflation expectations survey

With the adoption of inflation targeting in South Africa in 2000, the Bureau for Economic Research (BER) began to collect inflation expectations survey data on behalf of the South African Reserve Bank. This respected survey is rich by international standards and has contributed valuable insights to policy, academic and private sector analyses. International trends towards greater reliance on microdata within macroeconomics are, however, placing slightly different demands on the survey, and access to complementary datasets has offered new opportunities to enhance it. In this pilot study, we link the inflation expectations survey data of firms to a spatial tax panel dataset. We investigate whether the survey sample adequately represents the structure of the South African economy and offer a series of survey weights to be added to the micro dataset. The results show that the BER has maintained an adequate level of representativity over the life of the survey, but we recommend that sample weights be estimated periodically to ensure that representativity is ensured institutionally. The sample weights can also support targeted recruitment in future. Finally, through careful documentation we hope to enable other researchers to pursue questions that benefit from linking the inflation expectations data with other datasets.