Estimates of volunteering in the United States vary greatly from survey to survey and do not show the decline over time common to other measures of social capital. We argue that these anomalies are caused by the social processes that determine survey participation, in particular the propensity...

This paper examines non-response in a large government survey. The response rate for the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) has been below 60 percent for the first two years of its existence, raising questions about whether the results can be generalized to the target population. The paper begins...

This paper accounts for the observed increase in unemployment duration relative to the unemployment rate in the U.S. over the past thirty years, typified by the record low level of short-term unemployment. We show that part of the increase is due to changes in how duration is measured, a...

Introduction -- What data users want, need, and use -- Business register -- Harmonization of questionnaires and data collection processes -- Sampling and estimation -- Editing, imputation, disclosure control, and quality standards -- Dissemination -- Toward an integrated annual business survey...