IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cen/wpaper/00-15.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An Economist's Primer on Survey Samples

Author

Listed:
  • William J Carrington
  • John L Eltinge
  • Kristin McCue

Abstract

Survey data underlie most empirical work in economics, yet economists typically have little familiarity with survey sample design and its effects on inference. This paper describes how sample designs depart from the simple random sampling model implicit in most econometrics textbooks, points out where the effects of this departure are likely to be greatest, and describes the relationship between design-based estimators developed by survey statisticians and related econometric methods for regression. Its intent is to provide empirical economists with enough background in survey methods to make informed use of design-based estimators. It emphasizes surveys of households (the source of most public-use files), but also considers how surveys of businesses differ. Examples from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth of 1979 and the Current Population Survey illustrate practical aspects of design-based estimation.

Suggested Citation

  • William J Carrington & John L Eltinge & Kristin McCue, 2000. "An Economist's Primer on Survey Samples," Working Papers 00-15, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    • Handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:00-15
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2000/CES-WP-00-15.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lillard, Lee & Smith, James P & Welch, Finis, 1986. "What Do We Really Know about Wages? The Importance of Nonreporting and Census Imputation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(3), pages 489-506, June.
    2. Judith K. Hellerstein & Guido W. Imbens, 1999. "Imposing Moment Restrictions From Auxiliary Data By Weighting," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(1), pages 1-14, February.
    3. Hausman, Jerry, 2015. "Specification tests in econometrics," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 38(2), pages 112-134.
    4. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    5. Imbens, Guido W. & Lancaster, Tony, 1996. "Efficient estimation and stratified sampling," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 289-318, October.
    6. Moulton, Brent R., 1986. "Random group effects and the precision of regression estimates," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 385-397, August.
    7. Moulton, Brent R, 1990. "An Illustration of a Pitfall in Estimating the Effects of Aggregate Variables on Micro Unit," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(2), pages 334-338, May.
    8. Thomas MaCurdy & Thomas Mroz & R. Mark Gritz, 1998. "An Evaluation of the National Longitudinal Survey on Youth," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 33(2), pages 345-436.
    9. Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 1999. "Asymptotic Properties of Weighted M-Estimators for Variable Probability Samples," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(6), pages 1385-1406, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Barreto Humberto & Raghav Manu, 2013. "Understanding and teaching unequal probability of selection," Journal of Econometric Methods, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 101-112, July.
    2. Evans Jadotte, 2006. "Income Distribution and Poverty in the Republic of Haiti," Working Papers PMMA 2006-13, PEP-PMMA.
    3. Chandran, Ram, 2004. "A Tobit Analysis of WIC Children's Consumption of Pyramid Group Foods," 2004 Annual meeting, August 1-4, Denver, CO 19998, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    4. Jarvis, Justin, 2015. "Individual determinants of homelessness: A descriptive approach," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 23-32.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rok Spruk & Mitja Kovac, 2018. "Inefficient Growth," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 9(2).
    2. Klishchuk Bogdan & Zelenyuk Valentin, 2012. "Impact of Services LIberalization on Firm Level Productivity in Eastern Europe and Central Asia," EERC Working Paper Series 12/03e, EERC Research Network, Russia and CIS.
    3. Hansen, Bruce E. & Lee, Seojeong, 2019. "Asymptotic theory for clustered samples," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 210(2), pages 268-290.
    4. Mitja Kovac & Salvini Datta & Rok Spruk, 2021. "Pharmaceutical Product Liability, Litigation Regimes, and the Propensity to Patent: An Empirical Firm-Level Investigation," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(2), pages 21582440211, April.
    5. Hübler, Olaf, 2014. "Estimation of standard errors and treatment effects in empirical economics : methods and applications," Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 47(1-2), pages 43-62.
    6. Buchinsky, Moshe & Li, Fanghua & Liao, Zhipeng, 2022. "Estimation and inference of semiparametric models using data from several sources," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 226(1), pages 80-103.
    7. Ilias Livanos, 2010. "The Wage-Local Unemployment Relationship in a Highly Regulated Labour Market: Greece," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(4), pages 389-400.
    8. Thomas K. Bauer & Tanja Kasten & Lars-H. R. Siemers, 2017. "Business Taxation and Wages: Redistribution and Asymmetric Effects," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201732, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    9. Ammermueller, Andreas & Kuckulenz, Anja & Zwick, Thomas, 2009. "Aggregate unemployment decreases individual returns to education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 217-226, April.
    10. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    11. Nevo, Aviv, 2003. "Using Weights to Adjust for Sample Selection When Auxiliary Information Is Available," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 21(1), pages 43-52, January.
    12. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2011. "Robust Inference With Multiway Clustering," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 238-249, April.
    13. Christopher F Baum & Mark E. Schaffer & Steven Stillman, 2003. "Instrumental variables and GMM: Estimation and testing," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 3(1), pages 1-31, March.
    14. Heisig, Jan Paul & Schaeffer, Merlin & Giesecke, Johannes, 2017. "The Costs of Simplicity: Why Multilevel Models May Benefit from Accounting for Cross-Cluster Differences in the Effects of Controls," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 82(4), pages 796-827.
    15. Bernd Hayo & Matthias Wrede, 2004. "Fiscal equalisation: Principles and an application to the European Union," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 23(3), pages 333-348, December.
    16. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    17. Rok Spruk, 2019. "The rise and fall of Argentina," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 28(1), pages 1-40, December.
    18. Michalak, Tobias C. & Uhde, André, 2012. "Credit risk securitization and bank soundness in Europe," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 272-285.
    19. Bryan S. Graham & Cristine Campos De Xavier Pinto & Daniel Egel, 2012. "Inverse Probability Tilting for Moment Condition Models with Missing Data," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(3), pages 1053-1079.
    20. A. Colin Cameron & Douglas L. Miller, 2010. "Robust Inference with Clustered Data," Working Papers 318, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:00-15. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dawn Anderson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesgvus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.