Abstract
Karen L. Goldenberg, and Diane K. Willimack (2003) "Measurement
Differences in Key Economic Indicators." Proceedings of the Section on
Government Statistics, 2003,
American Statistical Association.
Economic indicators such as employment, earnings, and work hours may be
commonly understood terms, but as collected in U.S. government statistical
surveys they take on highly specific meanings. Operational definitions (and
sometimes underlying concepts) vary from survey to survey and across
statistical agencies, and present different cognitive and recordkeeping
demands for respondents. What happens to the "same" measures when
they are collected and reported in different surveys? This paper examines
the economic indicator concepts of total employment, production worker
employment, work hours, and payroll as they are operationalized in
self-administered establishment surveys conducted by the Census Bureau and
the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We contrast questionnaires and collection
procedures for the key variables across both surveys, and then compare
published estimates of the same variables to assess whether they are
statistically equivalent. To the extent that there are differences, we
consider whether those differences can be attributed to the structure and
the content of the survey questionnaires, and we discuss the implications of
our research findings.
Last Modified Date: July 15, 2004
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