Survey of Consumer Finances, 1983 (ICPSR 9751)

Principal Investigator(s): University of Michigan. Survey Research Center. Economic Behavior Program; Avery, Robert B.; Elliehausen, Gregory E.; Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Summary: The focus of this survey was the estimation of the debt obligations and asset holdings of a nationally representative sample of American families, and their use of financial institutions. A complete, detailed inventory of household assets and debts including businesses, pensions, properties, and financial transactions was collected along with demographic data and a comprehensive work history for primary family members. In addition to recording data on the economic assets and liabil... (more info)

Series: Survey of Consumer Finances Series

• One or more data files in this study are set up in a non-standard format, such as card image format. Users may need help converting these files before they can be used for analysis.

• These data are available only to users at ICPSR member institutions. Because you are not logged in, we cannot verify that you will be able to download the data.

University of Michigan. Survey Research Center. Economic Behavior Program, Robert B. Avery, Gregory E. Elliehausen, and Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Survey of Consumer Finances, 1983. ICPSR09751-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1992. doi:10.3886/ICPSR09751.v1

Persistent URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09751.v1

Export Citation:

• RIS (generic format for RefWorks, EndNote, etc.)
• EndNote XML (EndNote X4.0.1 or higher)

This survey was funded by:

• United States Department of Health and Human Services
• United States Department of the Treasury. Office of Tax Analysis
• Federal Trade Commission
• United States Department of Labor
• United States Department of the Treasury. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

Summary:   The focus of this survey was the estimation of the debt obligations and asset holdings of a nationally representative sample of American families, and their use of financial institutions. A complete, detailed inventory of household assets and debts including businesses, pensions, properties, and financial transactions was collected along with demographic data and a comprehensive work history for primary family members. In addition to recording data on the economic assets and liabilities of 4,103 families, the survey examined the attitudes of consumers toward credit use, their reactions to new financial instruments and to consumer credit regulations, and their knowledge of consumer pension rights and benefits. Data on reasons for various financial choices and attitudes toward financial risk and liquidity were also collected. Information that permits estimation of pension and Social Security wealth was gathered as well. Data for this collection exist in two versions: raw data prepared by the University of Michigan's Survey Research Center and recoded data, prepared by the Federal Reserve Board. The latter file was produced by the Federal Reserve Board using a series of consistency checks and imputation procedures to edit the raw data and estimate values for missing data. Additional weights were constructed and included in the recoded data file. New variables were also constructed directly from original variables and, in addition, were created by matching information from other sources such as the U.S. Census.

Subject Terms:   consumer attitudes, consumer protection, credit, debt, financial assets, household budgets, job history, loans, pension plans

Geographic Coverage:   United States

Time Period:  

• 1982--1983

Date of Collection:  

• 1983-02--1983-08

Universe:   National cross-section of dwelling units (exclusive of institutional quarters) representing the total population of the 48 contiguous United States.

Data Types:   survey data

Data Collection Notes:

The SPSS and SAS Control Cards provided with this collection are incomplete. Only SAS Input Statements and SPSS Data Lists are supplied.

Sample:   The survey sample of 3,824 randomly selected households in the United States was drawn using a controlled selection by state and degree of urbanization that resulted in a more geographically balanced sample and increased precision of sample estimates relative to a more conventional random design. A supplemental sample of 438 high-income households was drawn from 1980 federal income tax returns created by the Statistics of Income Division of the Internal Revenue Service from the same primary areas that were selected for the area probability sample. A special procedure utilizing the office of the Comptroller of the Currency was used to ensure the anonymity of the respondents. The total sample consisted of 4,262 household respondents. However, 159 sample observations were excluded due to significant missing information, yielding a net 4,103 cases. The same questionnaire was used for both subsets of respondents.

Data Source:

personal interviews

Original ICPSR Release:  1992-10-31

Version History:

• 2006-01-18 File CB9751.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.

Use any of the notification links to add this study to your RSS feed; you will then receive notification if the study is substantively updated.

• Citations exports are provided above.

• Export Study-level metadata (does not include variable-level metadata)

  • DDI Codebook or DDI Lifecycle

  • Dublin Core

  • MARC21 XML

  • DataCite XML

If you're looking for collection-level metadata rather than an individual metadata record, please visit our Metadata Records page.

• View Usage of this Study