The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is the world's longest running household panel survey. With over forty years of data on the same families and their descendents, the PSID is a cornerstone of data infrastructure for social science research. Through its long-term measures of economic and social well being, the study allows researchers and policy analysts to investigate the dynamism inherent in social and behavioral process. The long panel, genealogical design, and broad content provide scientists a unique and powerful opportunity to study evolution and chance within the same family over decades.
This award funds three primary activities: designing the PSID questionnaire content to facilitate the investigation of emerging scientific and policy questions in response to new events and new theories, collecting two new waves of data from the several thousand PSID families through computer-assisted telephone interviews, and methodological improvements in data processing and distribution that will make the data available quickly and easily to researchers around the globe through the PSID website. Collecting these additional waves of data from the PSID families contributes to scientific understanding of the dynamics of economic and social behavior. The extended time series of data supports new and systematic investigation of a myriad of questions in the full range of scientific disciplines that study how humans grow and change over the life cycle. This includes the study of economic outcomes (such as the changes that occur across business cycles such as the Great Recession), of the intergenerational transmission of wealth and income, and the study of how income and health in adulthood and old age depend on early-life experiences.
Consistent measures over time are important for accurately estimating the dynamics of these behaviors. Gathering data from the same families over a long time period improves the precision of the measurement as multiple measures are collected within the same families as well as from multiple families over a period of decades. In addition, because the PSID now tracks up to four generations of a family, the data will allow scientists to study several rounds of intergenerational changes. The core survey content will remain stable to maintain comparability with earlier waves. The PIs will carry out numerous innovations and enhancements, including new content on the measurement of health and human capital; linkages to valuable administrative data; and implementing a web/mail survey to study a new content area and experiment with new interviewing methods.
The PSID creates broader impacts in many ways. It is used by an interdisciplinary community and is increasingly important in health research. The data archive is used to inform public policy; at least nine federal agencies use PSID data. The PSID is also an important resource for teaching and learning. The data are free and publicly available, and are widely used by graduate and undergraduate students. The award funds a number of web-based outreach activities that will make the PSID an even more valuable tool for teaching and learning.
