Lee Lillard’s PSID Data Files
now Available for Public Use

Lee A. Lillard, director of the Michigan Retirement Research Center (MRRC) at the University of Michigan, senior research scientist at its Institute for Social Research (ISR), and professor of economics, developed a unique method for analyzing the rich compendium of data collected by the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) since its inception in 1968. Dr. Lillard died in December 2000, and his colleagues at PSID decided to provide the fruits of his work to the research community so others might benefit from an exploration of his techniques and methodologies for analyzing data. Dr. Lillard created what he called "clean processes" to investigate a number of dynamic behaviors that are measured longitudinally in PSID, such as employment, marriage-divorce, and fertility. He and his programmers and research assistants put these processes into a consistent framework, and made decisions about how to resolve inconsistencies, missing items, etc. Data from the files can be entered, as appropriate, in dynamic econometric models of related and mutually causal processes: for instance, the relationships among marriage, fertility, and female labor supply. Thus, researchers can study various combinations of these behaviors without having to go through complex file creation for each project.


University of Michigan
Institute for Social Research
426 Thompson Street
3026 ISR
Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248


Phone: 734-615-0422
Fax: 734-615-2180
Email: mrrcumich@umich.edu




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