The authors explore unique complete-count data from the 1930 Census in which a respondent's race was assigned by enumerators and "Mexican" was one of the possible responses. Census enumerators frequently and selectively assigned a non-Mexican race--predominantly "white"--to U.S.-born individuals...

The recent digitization of complete count census data is an extraordinary opportunity for social scientists to create large longitudinal datasets by linking individuals from one census to another or from other sources to the census. We evaluate different automated methods for record linkage,...

Using only 34 published tables, we reconstruct five variables (census block, sex, age, race, and ethnicity) in the confidential 2010 Census person records. Using the 38-bin age variable tabulated at the census block level, at most 20.1% of reconstructed records can differ from their confidential...

We study differences in economic outcomes by perceived skin tone among African Americans using full-count U.S. decennial census data from the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Comparing children coded as "Black" or "Mulatto" by census enumerators and linking these children across population...

Innovation is a key driver of long run economic growth. Studying innovation requires a clear view of the characteristics and behavior of the individuals that create new ideas. A general lack of rich, large-scale data has constrained such analyses. We address this by introducing a new dataset...

How high is unemployment? How low is labor force participation? Is obesity more prevalent among men? How large are household expenditures? We study the sources of the relevant official statistics--the Current Population Survey (CPS), the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), and...