U.S. Participation in the Development of a Transnational Database

卢森堡收入研究(LIS)数据库项目包括关于截至2001年1月的25个工业化经济体的家庭构成及其收入结构的可比横截面微观数据。它还在另一个副标题卢森堡就业研究(LES)下增加了16个国家的劳动力调查数据。LIS是跨学科、跨国家、合作的数据基础设施的领先例子之一，它支持导致重要政策相关见解的研究。今后三年的计划包括以下几个方面的改进：数据库管理(更先进的电子访问系统；更好的在线文件；2000年的第五波数据；新的劳动力调查)；研究(不平等、贫困、性别研究)；培训(在美国、欧洲和其他地方举办的LIS年度讲习班)；继续为收入分配统计制定新的国际标准；以及为收入分配研究制定购买力平价；在过去的17年里，LIS项目已经证明了它作为一个国际赞助和研究人员主导的数据库基础设施项目的可行性和实用性。它的绝大多数支持，以及它所有的“核心”行动，都是由一个由16个国家和22个资助者组成的国际财团资助的，比如美国国家科学基金会。由于LIS的电子访问在设计和意图上是免费的，一旦签署了隐私承诺，用户就将其视为一种“公共产品”，以很少的或没有直接成本地为他们提供好处。因此，“核心”资金始终是一个至关重要的问题。因此，这项来自美国的核心资金提案，就像向其他15个国家提出的提案一样，对LIS项目的持续未来至关重要。

The Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) database project consists of comparable cross-sectional microdata on the composition of households and the structure of their incomes for 25 industrialized economies as of January 2001. It has also added labor force survey data for 16 nations under another subtitle, the Luxembourg Employment Study (LES). LIS is one of the (if not the) leading examples of an interdisciplinary, cross-national, cooperative data infrastructure which supports research that leads to important policy relevant insights. The plans for the next three years include several improvements in database management (more sophisticated electronic access system; better on-line documentation; fifth wave of data for 2000; new surveys of the labor force); in research (inequality, poverty, gender studies); in training (annual LIS workshops in the United States, in Europe and elsewhere); in continuing to set new international standards for income distribution statistics; and in developing purchasing power parities for income distribution studies; and in providing US users with more direct access to the other nations' LIS surveys.Over the past 17 years, the LIS project has demonstrated its feasibility and usefulness as an internationally sponsored and researcher-lead database infrastructure project. The vast majority of its support, and all of its "core" operations, are funded by an international consortium of 16 nations and 22 funders such as the U.S. National Science Foundation. Because electronic access to LIS is, by design and intent, free once a privacy pledge is signed, users treat it as a "public good" which provides benefits at little or no direct cost to them. Hence, "core" funding is always a crucial issue. And so this proposal for core funding from the United States, like the proposals to the other 15 nations, is vital to the continued future of the LIS project.