U.S. Participation in the Development of a Transnational Database on Family Income

卢森堡收入研究项目是一个 国际社会科学联合会目前 18个工业化国家参加了这次会议， 同意汇集生活在美国的家庭收入的微观数据， 在不同的经济体中。 所提供的数据如下： 使其具有统计可比性并存储在中央 在卢森堡的设施，在那里他们可以访问， 研究人员无论是现场或远程通过计算机 电信网络。 LIS数据库提供了丰富的 收入分配多方面分析的资源， 现金和非现金收入转移制度， 不同国家经济福利的相对水平 人口分组，以及许多其他主题， 现在或不久将成为全世界关注的问题。 对数据设施的支持由 在分摊费用的基础上，由成员国组成联合体。 资金 由美国国家科学基金会提供， 国家参与财团，这些资金帮助 确保LIS数据库对美国的潜在价值。 社会科学家将实现。 的充分合作 所有成员国必须保证 数据检索的可行性，维持高标准 数据质量，逐步放宽方法， 对某些类型的数据分析的限制。 国家 科学基金会的资金不仅代表美国的合作 在企业中，他们还确保美国参与所有 重要的发展决策，以及帮助 抵消数据库维护和更新的成本。 在其 近十年的存在，这一结果 跨国项目令人印象深刻。

The Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) project is an internation-al social science consortium currently participated in by 18 in- dustrialized nations which have agreed to pool microdata on the incomes of families living within their diverse economies. The data so furnished are made statistically comparable and stored at a central facility in Luxembourg, where they may be accessed by researchers either on-site or remotely through a computerized telecommunications network. The LIS database provides a rich resource for multifaceted analyses of income distributions, of systems of cash and noncash income transfers, of relative levels of economic well-being across different demographic groupings, and of many other topics which are now, or soon will be of worldwide societal concern. Support for the data facility is provided by the consortium of member nations on a shared-cost basis. Funds provided by the National Science Foundation constitute United States participation in the consortium, and these funds help assure that the potential value of the LIS database to U.S. social scientists will be realized. The full cooperation of all member nations is required in order to guarantee feasibility of data retrieval, maintenance of high standards of data quality, and gradual relaxation of methodological constraints on certain types of data analysis. National Science Foundation funds not only represent U.S. cooperation in the enterprise, they also assure U.S. involvement in all important developmental decisions as well as helping to offset the cost of database maintenance and update. In its nearly ten years of existence the results of this transnational project have been impressive.