Valid estimates for repeated randomized response methods

Abstract

<p>Surveys with sensitive characteristics (e.g. cheating in exams, fiscal evasion, social fraud, insurance fraud, discrimination, political views, financial situation) need special concepts, because normal direct questioning causes answer refusal and lies. One well-established concept is the randomized response (RR) approach. RRs protect the interviewees' privacy and facilitate their cooperation. Based on the RRs of many persons, inference is possible. A recently published article suggests two repeated RR methods. That is, each interviewee must give more than one answer. Repeated RRs are a good idea to improve the estimation efficiency of RR techniques. However, this recently published article contains serious mistakes and derives invalid estimates. For this reason, we correct these mistakes and develop valid estimates in the first part of our article. Subsequently, in the second part, we present generalized considerations that cover many more repeated RR schemes.</p