Since 1991, the BHPS has generated annual micro-level household
information covering a wide range of substantively important and policy
relevant topics. Despite the impressive record of publications produced
using these data, there have been few systematic attempts to evaluate
BHPS income data against other sources. Such an evaluation is necessary
to see whether and in what way BHPS data differ from other sources which
are routinely used in the UK, including by government departments, for
policy-relevant analysis. In particular it is of interest to explore the
extent to which early and later waves of the BHPS longitudinal data
compare with sources of data that are designed to be representative at
each cross-section. In this paper we compare gross weekly earnings
collected from BHPS respondents with those obtained from respondents of
the Family Resources Survey (FRS) at two separate points in time, 1995
and 2003. The analysis starts with a comparison of means, and
distributions for the entire population and for specific subsamples.
Further, we investigate whether the two data sources deliver different
results in relation to a number of substantive issues which are relevant
to policy makers and social scientists such as poverty and wage
determination.
Presented by:
Francesca Zantomio (ISER), Holly Sutherland (ISER), Marco Francesconi (Department of Economics, University of Essex)
Date & time:
December 6, 2006 1:00 pm - December 6, 2006 12:00 am
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