The Synthetic Micro Data File: A New Tool for Economists

Detailed data files required to fill many economic models are not available Direct construction of a needed file often proves to be prohibitively expensive The author of this article poses one alternative to synthesize a file by merging two or more existing ones that. between them, contain the needed information For example, consider a researcher who wishes to know how economic variables affect sociological behavior and who has found one file with economic and demographic information and another with sociological and demographic information BV matching demographic characteristics, the researcher can construct a synthetic file to use In analyzing the relationship of economic and sociological characteristics