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Inferring Disability Status from Corrupt Data

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Author Info
John Pepper ()
Brent Kreider ()

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Abstract

We investigate what can be learned about the prevalence of work disability using self-reported assessments of work capacity. Although health status is widely recognized as a crucial determinant of labor supply behavior and participation in public transfer programs, there is a long-standing debate about the reliability of self-reported indicators. Anderson and Burkhauser (1985), in fact, labeled the appropriate use of health controls “the major unsettled issue in the empirical literature on the labor supply of older workers,” and the debate has only grown stronger over time. Rather than focus on assumptions required to obtain point identi…cation, we take a step back to evaluate what can be inferred about disability rates under a variety of assumptions that are weaker but arguably more credible than those imposed in the existing literature. Extending the work on corrupt samples developed by Horowitz and Manski (1995), we develop a set of nonparametric bounds that, in the most basic setting, require only prior information restricting the fraction of persons who might misreport disability. These bounds inform the ongoing debate by e¤ectively constraining the range of uncertainty regarding the e¤ects of inaccurate reporting on inferences. The results clearly show that the strength of the conclusions one can draw depend directly on the strength of the assumptions one is willing to impose. Under minimal assumptions, the bounds are nearly uninformative. Tighter bounds can be obtained with additional assumptions. Under the assumption that the true disability rate is nondecreasing with age, our results imply that conventional participation models which presume valid self-reports may be misspeci…ed.

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Paper provided by University of Virginia, Department of Economics in its series Virginia Economics Online Papers with number 354.

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Length: 19 pages
Date of creation: Aug 2001
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Handle: RePEc:vir:virpap:354

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Parsons, Donald O, 1980. "The Decline in Male Labor Force Participation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(1), pages 117-34, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Kathleen McGarry, 2004. "Health and Retirement: Do Changes in Health Affect Retirement Expectations?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(3). [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Dwyer, Debra Sabatini & Mitchell, Olivia S., 1999. "Health problems as determinants of retirement: Are self-rated measures endogenous?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 173-193, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Gruber, Jonathan & Kubik, Jeffrey D., 1997. "Disability insurance rejection rates and the labor supply of older workers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 1-23, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Bound, John & Burkhauser, Richard V., 1999. "Economic analysis of transfer programs targeted on people with disabilities," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 51, pages 3417-3528 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Parsons, Donald O., 1996. "Imperfect 'tagging' in social insurance programs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1-2), pages 183-207, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Kreider, Brent & Pepper, John V., 2007. "Disability and Employment: Reevaluating the Evidence in Light of Reporting Errors," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 102, pages 432-441, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Kreider, Brent, 2002. "Latent Work Disability and Reporting Bias," Staff General Research Papers 5185, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
  9. Anderson, Kathryn H. & Burkhauser, Richard V., 1984. "The importance of the measure of health in empirical estimates of the labor supply of older men," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 16(3-4), pages 375-380. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Hugo Benitez-Silva & Moshe Buchinsky & Hiu-Man Chan & John Rust & Sofia Sheivasser, 1997. "An Empirical Analysis of the Social Security Disability Application, Appeal, and Award Process," Public Economics 9712001, EconWPA, revised 16 Feb 1998. [Downloadable!]
  11. Kreider, Brent, 2002. "Behavioral Responses to Changes in Federal Disability Policy: The role of Measured Disability on Inferences," Staff General Research Papers 5396, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
  12. Bound, John, 1991. "The Health and Earnings of Rejected Disability Insurance Applicants: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1427-34, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Molinari, Francesca, 2005. "Partial Identification of Probability Distributions with Misclassified Data," Working Papers 05-10, Cornell University, Center for Analytic Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  14. Haveman, Robert H & Wolfe, Barbara L, 1984. "The Decline in Male Labor Force Participation: Comment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(3), pages 532-41, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Kreider, Brent, 2006. "Partially Identifying the Prevalence of Health Insurance Given Contaminated Sampling Response Error," Staff General Research Papers 12588, Iowa State University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  16. repec:att:wimass:199217 is not listed on IDEAS
  17. Charles F. Manski & John V. Pepper, 2000. "Monotone Instrumental Variables, with an Application to the Returns to Schooling," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(4), pages 997-1012, July.
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  18. Parsons, Donald O, 1991. "The Health and Earnings of Rejected Disability Insurance Applicants: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1419-26, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Horowitz, Joel L & Manski, Charles F, 1995. "Identification and Robustness with Contaminated and Corrupted Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(2), pages 281-302, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Parsons, Donald O, 1984. "Disability Insurance and Male Labor Force Participation: A Response," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(3), pages 542-49, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Owen O'Donnell, 1998. "The Effect of Disability on Employment Allowing for Work Incapacity," Studies in Economics 9813, Department of Economics, University of Kent. [Downloadable!]
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Martin Huber & Michael Lechner & Conny Wunsch, 2009. "Does Leaving Welfare Improve Health? Evidence for Germany," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2009 2009-21, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Gundersen, Craig & Kreider, Brent, 2006. "Food Stamps and Food Insecurity: What Can Be Learned in the Presence of Non-classical Measurement Error?," Staff General Research Papers 12690, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    Other versions:
  3. Kreider, Brent & Pepper, John, 2003. "Disability and Employment: Reevaluating the Evidence in Light of Reporting Errors," Staff General Research Papers 10229, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    Other versions:
  4. Kreider, Brent & Pepper, John V., 2006. "Identification of Expected Outcomes in a Data Error Mixing Model with Multiplicative Mean Independence," Staff General Research Papers 12496, Iowa State University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  5. Rubén Hernández-Murillo & John Knowles, 2004. "Racial profiling or racist policing? bounds tests in aggregate data," Working Papers 2004-012, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Sullivan, Paul, 2007. "Estimation of an Occupational Choice Model when Occupations are Misclassified," MPRA Paper 862, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Oct 2007. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. Per Johansson & Per Skedinger, 2009. "Misreporting in register data on disability status: evidence from the Swedish Public Employment Service," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 411-434, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Nabanita Datta Gupta & Nicolai Kristensen, 2008. "Work environment satisfaction and employee health: panel evidence from Denmark, France and Spain, 1994–2001," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 51-61, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Gundersen, Craig & Kreider, Brent, 2008. "Bounding the Effects of Food Insecurity on Children's Health Outcomes," Staff General Research Papers 13008, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
  10. Molinari, Francesca, 2005. "Partial Identification of Probability Distributions with Misclassified Data," Working Papers 05-10, Cornell University, Center for Analytic Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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