Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/308528 
Year of Publication: 
2024
Citation: 
[Journal:] Journal for Labour Market Research [ISSN:] 2510-5027 [Volume:] 58 [Issue:] 1 [Article No.:] 8 [Year:] 2024 [Pages:] 1-31
Publisher: 
Springer, Heidelberg
Abstract: 
We present evidence on the extent of measurement error in German longitudinal earnings data. Qualitatively, we confirm the main result of the international literature: longitudinal earnings data are relatively reliable in a cross section but much less so in first differences. Quantitatively, in the cross section our findings are very similar to those of Bound and Krueger (J Labor Econ 9:1-24, 1991) and Pischke (J Bus Econ Stat 13:305-314, 1995) for the United States while we find even stronger evidence that first-differencing exacerbates measurement error problems. We also show that measurement error in our survey data is not "classical" as it is negatively correlated with administrative earnings and positively autocorrelated over an extended period of time. Additionally, we estimate a model of measurement error stemming from underreporting of transitory earnings shocks in combination with a white-noise component and make a number of methodological contributions. Our results are robust to the use of two different linked survey-administrative data sets and various other sensitivity checks.
Subjects: 
Earnings dynamics
Linked survey-administrative data
Measurement error
Transitory and permanent earnings
JEL: 
C33
C18
J30
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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