This paper investigates sample attrition in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We compare attrition behavior in two of the HRS cohorts: original HRS cohort and AHEAD cohort. We distinguish attrition due to death (passive attrition) from attrition due to other causes (active attrition),...

Research on time and financial transfers is often conducted along two distinct lines—transfers within the family and transfers beyond the family—without considering the fact that the two types of transfers are actually interrelated. Using longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement...

Based on a model of two-stage life cycle, this paper investigates and measures intergerational relationships in lifetime earnings. Using data from PSID, I have found that the lifetime earnings transmission equation is non-linear. The elasticity of a son's lifetime earnings with respect to his...

Students in any schools are not a random collection from the population. They become schoolmates because of their parents' selections of school quality that are contingent on their genetic abilities and family background. Even specified correctly, the conventional educational production...

This paper deals with methodological issues that arise in measuring household wealth. Two prominent American household surveys--the PSID and SCF--rely on different methodological approaches to the measurement of household wealth. In particular, SCF oversamples high-income households and has a...

In this paper, we evaluate two survey innovations aimed at improving income measurement. These innovations are (1) integrating the question sequences for income and wealth which may elicit more accurate estimates of income from capital than has been true in the past, and (2) changes in the...

Missing data are an increasingly important problem in economic surveys, especially when trying to measure household wealth. However, some relatively simple new survey methods such as follow-up brackets appear to appreciably improve the quality of household economic data. Brackets represent...