Consumer Expenditure Survey, 1987: Diary Survey (ICPSR 9333)

Version Date: Jan 12, 2006

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Principal Investigator(s):
United States Department of Labor. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Series:

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09333.v1

Version V1

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Summary

The ongoing Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) provides a continuous, comprehensive flow of data on the buying habits of American consumers. In addition, these data are used to maintain and to review the Consumer Price Index. The Diary, or recordkeeping, component of the CES contains expenditure data for items purchased on a daily or weekly basis. Participants from consumer units, which are roughly equivalent to households, are asked to maintain expense records, or diaries, of all purchases made each day for two consecutive one-week periods. Diaries are designed to record information on small, frequently purchased items such as food, beverages, food consumed away from home, gasoline, housekeeping supplies, nonprescription drugs and medical supplies, and personal care products and services. Information is also elicited at the end of the two-week period on work experience, occupation, industry, retirement status, member earnings from wages and salaries, net income from business or profession, net income from one's own farm, and income from other sources. The unit of analysis for the Consumer Expenditure Surveys is the consumer unit, consisting of all members of a particular housing unit who are related by blood, marriage, adoption, or some other legal arrangement. Consumer unit determination for unrelated persons is based on financial independence. The Consumer Unit Characteristics and Income (FMLY) files supply information on consumer unit characteristics, consumer unit income, and characteristics and earnings of the reference person and his or her spouse. Member Characteristics (MEMB) files contain selected characteristics for each consumer unit member, including reference person and spouse. The Detailed Expenditures (EXPN) files present weekly data on expenditures at the UCC level, while the Income (DTAB) files contain weekly data on income at the UCC level.

Citation

United States Department of Labor. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Consumer Expenditure Survey, 1987:  Diary Survey. [distributor], 2006-01-12. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09333.v1

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Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

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Time Period(s)

1987

Data Collection Notes

  1. Documentation is machine-readable only. A sample program is included in the 1987 documentation that permits the user to create 1987 Diary News Release output. This allows the user to verify that the copy of the tape contains valid data, illustrates BLS's methodology in producing publication tables, and offers an example of coding to access the tape. In addition, integrated data from the Diary and Interview portions of the Consumer Expenditure Survey were made available for the first time in 1987. Reference to this material appears in the EXPN and DTAB files under the variable PUB_FLAG.

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Sample

This survey is based on a national probability sample of households. The sampling frame (i.e., the list from which housing units were chosen) for this survey was generated from the 1980 Census 100 percent detail file. Each selected sample unit is requested to keep two one-week diaries of expenditures over consecutive weeks. The earliest possible day for placing a diary with a household is predesignated so that each day of the week has an equal chance to start the reference week and the diaries are evenly spaced throughout the year. During the last six weeks of the year, the diary sample is supplemented to twice its normal size to increase the reportings of types of expenditures unique to the holiday season.

Universe

Civilian noninstitutional population of the United States.

Data Source

personal interviews, and self-enumerated forms

Data Type(s)

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Original Release Date

1990-04-20

Version History

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:
  • U.S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. CONSUMER EXPENDITURE SURVEY, 1987: DIARY SURVEY. Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census [producer], 1989. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1990. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09333.v1

2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 20 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.

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Notes