Memo

The Census Bureau plans to conduct cognitive testing for the revised BE-13, Survey of New Foreign Direct Investment in the United States. The survey, which the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) will field in early 2017, will collect information covering the acquisition or establishment of U.S. business enterprises by foreign investors and information on expansions by existing U.S. affiliates of foreign companies. The data collected on the survey will measure the amount of new foreign direct investment in the United States. The BE-13 survey will also identify new U.S. affiliates that meet reporting criteria for BEA’s related benchmark, annual, and quarterly surveys of foreign direct investment and the information will be used to update data on the universe of U.S. affiliates to ensure that it is complete. Depending on the status of responding businesses, the businesses may report on any of the following BE-13 forms: BE-13A, BE-13B, BE-13D, BE-13E, and BE-13 Claim for Not Filing. Further information about the BE-13 survey can be found at this link: http://www.bea.gov/surveys/respondent_be13.htm.

Prior or during the fielding of the BE-13, staff from the Data Collection Methodology & Research Branch within the Economic Directorate of the Census Bureau will be working with staff from BEA to conduct cognitive testing on the forms. For this testing, we will interview up to 30 respondents at their business sites from either local businesses in the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area, or businesses in metropolitan areas where companies meeting selection criteria are clustered. BEA will provide us with a list of businesses, using a commercial database, from which we will recruit.

These interviews have two purposes. The first purpose is to evaluate changes that have been made to the survey forms based on cognitive and debriefing interviews that were conducted in 2015. The second purpose is continue the research done during those previous interviews, to understand potential problems within the data that BEA’s analysts may encounter when conducting quality assurance. The interviews will focus on respondents’ reactions to the layout of the updated survey forms and their ability to complete the questionnaires. Results may also be used to reduce reporting burden, improve item and unit response, and improve data quality in future iterations of the BE-13.

Subject area specialists from BEA will accompany the researcher on most, if not all, of the interviews. They will assist in cases where additional clarification of the subject matter is required. Interviews will be audio recorded, with the participants’ permission, to aid researchers in accurately reporting findings and recommendations.

We will contact potential respondents to the BE-13 and ask them to participate in our study. Once interviews are scheduled, researchers will send respondents a confirmation via fax or email, and may conduct reminder calls a few days before the meetings.

We will inform participants that their response is voluntary, and that the information they provide is confidential and will be seen only by Census Bureau employees, BEA employees, and Select USA employees involved in the research project. We will not be providing monetary incentives to participants in this study.

We anticipate that each interview will include an average of two company participants. We estimate that, on average, the interviews will take one hour. Thus, the total estimated burden for completed interviews is 60 hours (30 interviews X 2 company participants X 1 hour).

In order to schedule up to 30 interviews, we may contact approximately 100 companies, with each call lasting up to five minutes. We estimate the maximum associated recruiting burden to be approximately 8.33 hours (100 X 5 minutes = 8.33 hours). Thus, the estimated total public reporting burden for this research is approximately 68.33 hours.

Enclosed are the BE-13 forms, a type of transaction form, and a sample protocol that we will be using for the cognitive testing.

The contact person for questions regarding data collection and statistical aspects of the design of this research is listed below:

Kenneth Herrell

Data Collection Methodology & Research Branch

Economic Statistical Methods Division (ESMD)

U.S. Census Bureau

Washington, D.C. 20233

(301) 763-2197

Kenneth.Herrell@census.gov

Enclosures

cc:
William Bostic          (DIR) with enclosures

Nick Orsini (DIR)        “          ”
Carol Caldwell             (ESMD)    “          ”
Diane Willimack             (ESMD)     “          ”
Amy Anderson Riemer  (ESMD)     “          ”

Carma Hogue (ESMD) “ ”

Danielle Norman (PCO) “ ”