Journal of Economic and Social Measurement - Volume 20, issue 2

Authors: Belman, Dale | Franklin, Thomas E. | Heywood, John S.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: This paper shows how state wage surveys can be used to compare the earnings of public and private sector workers within states. This subject of long-running interest to economists has generated a complex and sometimes contradictory set of empirical results. …Surprisingly little, if any, of this academic work has used the publicly available wage surveys that many states routinely collect. This paper serves as an introduction to such surveys and an application of the Wisconsin State Wage Survey for the purpose of comparing public and private compensation. While the evidence generally indicates public earnings are higher, we are careful to point out the limitations of our methodology which suggests this conclusion is incomplete. Show more

DOI: 10.3233/JEM-1994-20201

Citation: Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 79-94, 1994

Authors: Stratton, Leslie S.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Official statistics indicate that involuntary part-time employment (part-time employment theoretically accepted only because full-time employment is not available) has more than tripled over the last twenty years, increasing substantially more rapidly than even unemployment and now encompassing about …three million workers. The goal of this study is to examine the empirical definition of involuntary part-time employment, and to see how sensitive the level and trend in involuntary part-time employment are to the particular definition employed. Results suggest that official estimates of involuntary part-time employment may be high – perhaps 50% too high. While the level is quite sensitive, the alarming trend in involuntary part-time employment is robust to a variety of alternative empirical definitions. Show more

DOI: 10.3233/JEM-1994-20202

Citation: Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 95-115, 1994

Authors: Walden, Daniel C. | Miller, Richard | Cohen, Steven B.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: The 1987 National Expenditure Survey was conducted by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, USPHS to provide an assessment of the health care utilization, expenditures, sources of payment and health coverage of the civilian noninstitutional population. The …Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX) is sponsored by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and provides a continuous and comprehensive flow of data on the buying habits of consumers though the collection of information on the expenditures, income, and socio-demographic characteristics of customer units. It is designed to support Consumer Price Index revisions and social and economic analyses. Differences in family out-of-pocket expenditures for hospital services, physician services, services by other practitioners, lab tests and x-ray services, nursing services, eye glasses and contact lenses, dental services, prescription medicines are compared. Differences in the distributions of these expenditures are explored as are the association of differences with population characteristics. Show more

DOI: 10.3233/JEM-1994-20203

Citation: Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 117-135, 1994

Authors: O'Connell, Martin | Miller, Louisa

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Retrospective surveys are important for documenting vital events in historical time periods. The assumption used in these analyses is that the information reported at the time of the interview portrays a representative picture of past events. Using the Census Bureau's …1990 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, this paper examines the potential problems encountered in deriving retrospective statistics when immigrants — who married or had children outside of the U.S. — constitute a significant proportion of survey respondents. The inclusion of these “immigrated” vital events in the survey resulted in (1) underestimating the mean age at first marriage for all Hispanics in the survey by 0.4 years, and (2) overestimating the premarital first birth ratio for Asians by 50 percent. Given likely future continued immigration from Latin America and Asia, these results suggest that future surveys should include migration histories in order to enable the survey to produce accurate retrospective statistics for these groups. Show more

DOI: 10.3233/JEM-1994-20204

Citation: Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 137-158, 1994