IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v108y2010i1p69-72.html

Improving imputations of top incomes in the public-use current population survey by using both cell-means and variances

Author

Listed:
  • Burkhauser, Richard V.
  • Feng, Shuaizhang
  • Larrimore, Jeff

Abstract

Using internal March CPS data, we construct and make available variances and cell-means for all topcoded income values in the public-use CPS. We then demonstrate how their inclusion can improve existing imputation methods in the labor earnings inequality literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Burkhauser, Richard V. & Feng, Shuaizhang & Larrimore, Jeff, 2010. "Improving imputations of top incomes in the public-use current population survey by using both cell-means and variances," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 69-72, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:108:y:2010:i:1:p:69-72
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165-1765(10)00088-1
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Melissa S. Kearney, 2008. "Trends in U.S. Wage Inequality: Revising the Revisionists," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(2), pages 300-323, May.
    2. Richard Burkhauser & Jeff Larrimore, 2008. "Using Internal Current Population Survey Data to Reevaluate Trends in Labor Earnings Gaps by Gender, Race, and Education Level," Working Papers 08-18, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    3. Jeff Larrimore & Richard V. Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Laura Zayatz, 2008. "Consistent Cell Means for Topcoded Incomes in the Public Use March CPS (1976-2007)," NBER Working Papers 13941, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Richard V. Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Jeff Larrimore, 2008. "Measuring Labor Earnings Inequality using Public-Use March Current Population Survey Data: The Value of Including Variances and Cell Means When Imputing Topcoded Values," NBER Working Papers 14458, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Thomas Lemieux, 2006. "Increasing Residual Wage Inequality: Composition Effects, Noisy Data, or Rising Demand for Skill?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 461-498, June.
    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. Katy Bergstrom & William Dodds & Nicholas Lacoste & Juan Rios, 2025. "Estimating the Welfare Cost of Labor Supply Frictions," Working Papers 2503, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    2. Vladimir Hlasny, 2021. "Parametric representation of the top of income distributions: Options, historical evidence, and model selection," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 1217-1256, September.
    3. Bargain, Olivier B. & Dolls, Mathias & Immervoll, Herwig & Neumann, Dirk & Peichl, Andreas & Pestel, Nico & Siegloch, Sebastian, 2011. "Tax Policy and Income Inequality in the U.S., 1978-2009: A Decomposition Approach," IZA Discussion Papers 5910, IZA Network @ LISER.
    4. Nora Lustig, 2018. "Measuring the Distribution of Household Income, Consumption and Wealth: State of Play and Measurement Challenges," Working Papers 1801, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    5. Vladimir Hlasny & Paolo Verme, 2018. "Top Incomes and Inequality Measurement: A Comparative Analysis of Correction Methods Using the EU SILC Data," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-21, June.
    6. Frank A. Cowell & Emmanuel Flachaire, 2014. "Statistical Methods for Distributional Analysis," Working Papers halshs-01115996, HAL.
    7. Daniel L. Millimet & Christopher F. Parmeter, 2025. "The impact of measurement error on trends in earnings inequality in the USA," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 69(5), pages 2727-2753, November.
    8. Vladimir Hlasny & Paolo Verme, 2022. "The Impact of Top Incomes Biases on the Measurement of Inequality in the United States," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(4), pages 749-788, August.
    9. Nora Lustig, 2019. "The “Missing Rich” in Household Surveys: Causes and Correction Approaches," Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Working Paper Series 75, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    10. repec:osf:socarx:j23pn_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Nora Lustig & Andrea Vigorito, 2025. "The "Missing Rich" in Household Surveys: Causes and Correction Approaches. Extended Version with Technical Appendixes," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 25-03, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    12. Lustig, Nora & Vigorito, Andrea, 2025. "The “Missing Rich” in Household Surveys: Causes and Correction Approaches," SocArXiv 97ng6_v1, Center for Open Science.
    13. Ferreira, Francisco H. G. & Brunori, Paolo, 2024. "Inherited inequality, meritocracy, and the purpose of economic growth," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 126263, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Lidia Ceriani & Paolo Verme, 2022. "Population Changes and the Measurement of Inequality," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 162(2), pages 549-575, July.
    15. João Nicolau & Pedro Raposo & Paulo M. M. Rodrigues, 2023. "Measuring wage inequality under right censoring," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(2), pages 377-401, April.

    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. Stephen P. Jenkins & Richard V. Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Jeff Larrimore, 2009. "Measuring Inequality Using Censored Data: A Multiple Imputation Approach," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 866, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    2. Stephen P. Jenkins & Richard V. Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Jeff Larrimore, 2011. "Measuring inequality using censored data: a multiple‐imputation approach to estimation and inference," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 174(1), pages 63-81, January.
    3. Philip Armour & Richard V. Burkhauser & Jeff Larrimore, 2016. "Using The Pareto Distribution To Improve Estimates Of Topcoded Earnings," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(2), pages 1263-1273, April.
    4. Bradley Hardy & James P. Ziliak, 2014. "Decomposing Trends In Income Volatility: The “Wild Ride” At The Top And Bottom," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(1), pages 459-476, January.
    5. João Nicolau & Pedro Raposo & Paulo M. M. Rodrigues, 2023. "Measuring wage inequality under right censoring," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(2), pages 377-401, April.
    6. Richard Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Stephen Jenkins & Jeff Larrimore, 2011. "Estimating trends in US income inequality using the Current Population Survey: the importance of controlling for censoring," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(3), pages 393-415, September.
    7. T. Gries & R. Grundmann & I. Palnau & M. Redlin, 2017. "Innovations, growth and participation in advanced economies - a review of major concepts and findings," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 293-351, April.
    8. Theodore Koutmeridis, 2013. "The Market for "Rough Diamonds": Information, Finance and Wage Inequality," CDMA Working Paper Series 201307, Centre for Dynamic Macroeconomic Analysis, revised 14 Oct 2013.
    9. Verdugo, Gregory, 2014. "The great compression of the French wage structure, 1969–2008," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 131-144.
    10. Sabelhaus, John & Song, Jae, 2010. "The great moderation in micro labor earnings," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(4), pages 391-403, May.
    11. Bosch, Mariano & Manacorda, Marco, 2008. "Minimum wages and earnings inequality in urban Mexico. Revisiting the evidence," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 19561, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Monte, Ferdinando, 2011. "Skill bias, trade, and wage dispersion," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 202-218, March.
    13. Joseph G. Altonji & Prashant Bharadwaj & Fabian Lange, 2012. "Changes in the Characteristics of American Youth: Implications for Adult Outcomes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(4), pages 783-828.
    14. Berthold, Norbert & Zenzen, Jupp, 2009. "Stochern im Nebel: der Ungleichheit auf der Spur," Discussion Paper Series 104, Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, Chair of Economic Order and Social Policy.
    15. Byambasuren Dorjnyambuu, 2025. "A Systematic Literature Review of Income Inequality in Central–Eastern European Countries," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 67(1), pages 1-49, March.
    16. Carol Scotese, 2009. "War Mobilization and the Great Compression," Working Papers 0901, VCU School of Business, Department of Economics.
    17. Snower, Dennis J. & Görlich, Dennis, 2013. "Multitasking and Wages," IZA Discussion Papers 7426, IZA Network @ LISER.
    18. Asplund, Rita, 2009. "Sources of Increased Wage Differentials in the Finnish Private Sector," Discussion Papers 1206, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    19. Eric D Gould, 2019. "Explaining the Unexplained: Residual Wage Inequality, Manufacturing Decline and Low-skilled Immigration," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(619), pages 1281-1326.
    20. Holger M. Mueller & Paige P. Ouimet & Elena Simintzi, 2015. "Wage Inequality and Firm Growth," LIS Working papers 632, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:eee:ecolet:v:108:y:2010:i:1:p:69-72. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    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.