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

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9511521 Smeeding The Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) database consists of comparable microdata on the composition of households and the structure of their cash incomes for 23 industrialized economies as of December 1994. LIS standardizes these data and makes them available through electronic mail. These data are used by over 300 researchers worldwide to analyze economic and social policy and its effect on such topics as income structure, poverty and income inequality, and wage and earnings differentials by education level and by gender. Regular activities such as biennial meetings and summer workshops, are combined with intermittent conferences and meetings involving the database. Over the past seven years, the LIS project has demonstrated its feasibility and usefulness as an internationally sponsored and researcher-lead database project. It is unique in its approach to funding in that the majority of its support, and all of its "core' operations, are funded by a consortium of 18 nations. Because electronic access to LIS is, by design and intent, free once a privacy pledge is signed, many users treat it as a "public good" which provides benefits at little or no direct cost to them. This grant provides renewed funding for the United States core contribution to LIS.