IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedmwp/681.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Interstate migration has fallen less than you think: consequences of hot deck imputation in the Current Population Survey

Author

Listed:
  • Greg Kaplan
  • Sam Schulhofer-Wohl

Abstract

We show that the significant drop in the annual interstate migration rate between the 2005 and 2006 Current Population Surveys is a statistical artifact. The Census Bureau’s imputation procedure for dealing with missing data before the 2006 survey year inflated the estimated interstate migration rate. An undocumented change in the procedure corrected the problem for the 2006 and later surveys, thus reducing the estimated migration rate. The change in imputation procedures explains 90 percent of the reported decrease in interstate migration between 2005 and 2006, and 42 percent of the decrease between 2000 (the recent high-water mark) and 2010. After we remove the effect of the change in procedures, we find that the annual interstate migration rate follows a smooth downward trend from 1996 to 2010. The 2007–2009 recession is not associated with any additional decrease in interstate migration relative to trend.

Suggested Citation

  • Greg Kaplan & Sam Schulhofer-Wohl, 2010. "Interstate migration has fallen less than you think: consequences of hot deck imputation in the Current Population Survey," Working Papers 681, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedmwp:681
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_display.cfm?id=4568
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/wp/wp681.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Greg Kaplan & Sam Schulhofer-Wohl, 2012. "Interstate Migration Has Fallen Less Than You Think: Consequences of Hot Deck Imputation in the Current Population Survey," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 49(3), pages 1061-1074, August.
    2. Charles Brown, 1984. "Black-White Earnings Ratios Since the Civil Rights Act of 1964: The Importance of Labor Market Dropouts," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 99(1), pages 31-44.
    3. C. Hamilton, 1964. "The negro leaves the south," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 1(1), pages 273-295, March.
    4. Katherine Curtis White & Kyle Crowder & Stewart Tolnay & Robert Adelman, 2005. "Race, gender, and marriage: destination selection during the great migration," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 42(2), pages 215-241, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C81 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data; Data Access
    • C83 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Survey Methods; Sampling Methods
    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fip:fedmwp:681. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Jannelle Ruswick). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/frbmnus.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.