Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)
1873-7374
abstract
We study how estimators that are used to impute consumption in survey data are inconsistent due to measurement error in consumption. Previous research suggests instrumenting consumption to overcome this problem. We show that, if additional regressors are present, then instrumenting consumption may still produce inconsistent estimators due to the likely correlation between additional regressors and measurement error. On the other hand, low correlations between additional regressors and instruments may reduce bias due to measurement error. We apply our findings by revisiting recent research that imputes consumption data from the CEX to the PSID. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Classification
subjects
Economics
keywords
consumption; measurement error; instrumental variables; consumer expenditure survey; panel study of income dynamics; income shocks