An Experimental Test of Mail Surveys as a Tool for Social Inquiry in Russia

We present an experiment conducted in Russia testing the effectiveness of mail surveys for collecting social scientific data. Our primary focus is on testing the social exchange and economic exchange theories of mail survey participation. In addition, we randomly vary several conditions which were found to impact mail response rates in Western studies. Our findings confirm the effectiveness of the social exchange model in a non-Western context. For those exposed to all conditions our response rates were >50%, indicating the viability of mail surveys from a comparative methods perspective. A rich sampling frame provides an opportunity to test for survey nonresponse bias. Our tests demonstrate only small differences between those who responded to the survey and those who did not.