Publication type
Journal Article
Authors
Publication date
March 1, 2009
Abstract:
The March Current Population Survey (CPS) is the primary data source for estimation of levels and trends in labor earnings and income inequality in the USA. Time-inconsistency problems related to top coding in theses data have led many researchers to use the ratio of the 90th and 10th percentiles of these distributions (P90/P10) rather than a more traditional summary measure of inequality. With access to public use and restricted-access internal CPS data, and bounding methods, we show that using P90/P10 does not completely obviate time-inconsistency problems, especially for household income inequality trends. Using internal data, we create consistent cell mean values for all top-coded public use values that, when used with public use data, closely track inequality trends in labor earnings and household income using internal data. But estimates of longer-term inequality trends with these corrected data based on P90/P10 differ from those based on the Gini coefficient. The choice of inequality measure matters.
Published in
Review of Income and Wealth
Volume and page numbers
Volume: 55 , p.166 -185
Link
- http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0034-6586&site=1
Notes
Held online ASL - http://serlib0.essex.ac.uk/record=b1588073~S5 Copy notes from working paper.
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