Simu-Survey Experiments: A Novel Use of Tax-Benefit Microsimulation Modelling in the Context of Survey Experiments. Springer Nature.

Citizens often possess limited knowledge about social policies, prompting a large literature that uses information experiments to study how policy-relevant information shapes attitudes and behavioural intentions. While these experiments offer strong causal leverage through random assignment, they typically rely on hypothetical or fabricated information and focus on existing policy arrangements. This chapter introduces simu-survey experiments, a novel extension of information experiments in which treatments are derived from tax-benefit microsimulation models such as EUROMOD. By embedding microsimulation-based estimates directly into survey experiments, this approach combines the causal strengths of experimental designs with empirically realistic projections of policy outcomes. Simu-survey experiments are particularly suited to studying how citizens respond to policy reforms or life-course transitions that depart from the status quo. We illustrate the approach using a simu-survey experiment embedded in the second wave of the Basic Income in Belgium (BABEL) survey (N = 2,500), in which respondents evaluated universal basic income scenarios before and after receiving microsimulation-based information about their expected consequences.

Link: https://link.springer.com/book/9783032314130