Eliciting People’s First-Order Concerns: Text Analysis of Open-Ended Survey Questions

Abstract

We illustrate the design and use of open-ended survey questions to elicit people's first-order concerns on policies. Closed-ended questions are the backbone of surveys but may prime respondents to select some answers and may omit relevant options. Open-ended questions that do not constrain respondents with specific answer choices are a valuable tool for eliciting first-order thinking. We discuss three text analysis methods to analyze open-ended questions' answers and apply them to surveys on income and estate taxation. People's key concerns relate mostly to distribution issues, fairness, and trust in government rather than to efficiency, and they exhibit large partisan gaps.