Research Working Papers

Working papers are intended to make results of Census Bureau research available to others and to encourage discussion on a variety of topics. They have not undergone a review and editorial process generally accorded official Census Bureau publications.

List of working papers by series.

Page 1 of 2

Leveraging Images to Improve School Pulse Panel Data Quality

May 23, 2025

Written by: Caitlyn Keeve, Kristen Kohm, Alexandra Piccirillo, Jennifer Pace, Kelyvette Ortiz Fontanez, Jonathan Katz, Erin Tanenbaum

This report presents cognitive testing findings of using images in response options for questions on traffic measures and bike infrastructure.
Working Paper

Impact Investing and Worker Outcomes

May 2025

Written by: JOSH LERNER, MARKUS LITHELL, AND GORDON M. PHILLIPS

This research shows impact-backed firms hire more disadvantaged workers and favor them in wage increases compared to VC-backed firms.
Working Paper

The Rising Returns to R&D: Ideas Are Not Getting Harder to Find

May 2025

Written by: YOSHIKI ANDO, JAMES BESSEN, AND XIUPENG WANG

Are “ideas harder to find?” R&D increases firm productivity MORE than in the 1970s, but rising obsolescence dampens gains to aggregate productivity.
Working Paper

Accelerating Entropy Balancing Sample Weighting

May 2025

Written by: Carl Sanders

New optimization routines described and implemented to quickly weight large samples using Entropy Balance calibration.
Working Paper

2024 American Community Survey Mailout Timing Test

May 2025

Written by: <p>Broderick Oliver, Michael Risley, & Peter Massarone</p>

This report discusses the effect of an experiment testing changes to the timing of the mailouts of the ACS Due Date Letter and ACS CAPI Internet Letter.
Working Paper

Divorce, Family Arrangements, and Children’s Adult Outcomes

May 2025

Written by: ANDREW C. JOHNSTON, MAGGIE R. JONES, AND NOLAN G. POPE

We use linked tax and Census records for over 5 million children to examine how divorce affects family arrangements and children’s long-term outcomes.
Working Paper

A Question Template for Non-Methodologists when Redesigning

May 02, 2025

Written by: Jennifer Sinibaldi, PhD

This paper describes a question template used for a large redesign to capture goals in cognitive testing.
Working Paper

A Machine Learning Approach for Counting Language Minority Groups ...

April 2025

Written by: Joseph Kang and Adam C. Hall

A Machine Learning Approach for Counting Language Minority Groups in the United States
Working Paper

Enhancing Web Survey Data Quality While Minimizing Burden

April 24, 2025

Written by: Renee Stepler, Abbey Nawrocki, Lisa Cheok

This experiment tested three approaches for reporting discrete values for mortgage, rent, utilities, and the down payment for home purchases.
Working Paper

Feasibility of Using an Online Individual Census Questionnaire in 2030

April 22, 2025

Written by: Alexandra Piccirillo, Elizabeth Nichols, Alda Rivas, Dave Tuttle

A survey was sent to administrators of select group quarters types to help determine which types should be eligible for an internet self-response option.
Working Paper

Using Administrative Records for Enumeration in the 2020 U.S. Census

April 2025

Written by: <p>Mary H. Mulry, Thomas Mule, Andrew D. Keller, Scott M. Konicki</p>

This report provides a high-level discussion that includes more details regarding the evolution of the methodology for AR enumeration and its implementation.
Working Paper

Targeting At-Risk Households to Reduce the Undercount

April 17, 2025

Written by: Joanne Pascale

Detailed agenda for incorporating community-based participatory research and administrative records to target sample for research to reduce the undercount.
Working Paper

The Rise of Industrial AI in America: Microfoundations of the Productivity J-curve(s)

April 2025

Written by: KRISTINA MCELHERAN, MU-JEUNG YANG, ZACHARY KROFF, AND ERIK BRYNJOLFSSON

Early AI adoption in U.S. manufacturing produced a J-curve pattern of short term productivity loss followed by medium term growth – though quite unevenly.
Working Paper

Startup Dynamics: Transitioning from Nonemployer Firms to Employer Firms, Survival, and Job Creation

April 2025

Written by: ALICIA ROBB AND ADJI FATOU DIAGNE

We track a cohort of startups for a seven year period to study transition from employer to nonemployer status, firm survival, and job creation.
Working Paper

The Impact of Childcare Costs on Mothers’ Labor Force Participation

April 2025

Written by: VALESKA ARAUJO, LINDEN MCBRIDE, AND DANIELLE H. SANDLER

Childcare costs shape moms’ work decisions. Using national data, this study finds rising costs reduce labor force participation, especially for low-income moms.
Working Paper

Place Based Economic Development and Tribal Casinos

April 2025

Written by: RANDALL AKEE, MAGGIE R. JONES, AND EMILIA SIMEONOVA

We review existing research on the effect of American Indian casinos on measures of local economic development and examine reservation employment dynamics.
Working Paper

Re-assessing the Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis

April 2025

Written by: DAVID CARD, JESSE ROTHSTEIN, AND MOISES YI

Using LEHD data, we show that Black workers live closer to good jobs than whites, suggesting spatial mismatch plays a limited role in racial wage gaps today.
Working Paper

Size Matters: Matching Externalities and the Advantages of Large Labor Markets

April 2025

Written by: ENRICO MORETTI AND MOISES YI

Using LEHD data, we show that larger labor markets help displaced workers recover faster, relocate less, and find better, longer-lasting job matches.
Working Paper

Maximum Norm Ratio Test

April 2025

Written by: Adam Hall

This paper proposes a (deterministic) maximum ratio test for G-dimensional parameter estimates.
Working Paper

Growth is Getting Harder to Find, Not Ideas

April 2025

Written by: TERESA C. FORT, NATHAN GOLDSCHLAG, JACK LIANG, PETER K. SCHOTT, AND NIKOLAS ZOLAS

We build a panel tracking firms' patenting to separately investigate the relationships between research inputs and ideas (patents) versus ideas and growth.
Working Paper

The Composition of Firm Workforces from 2006–2022: Findings from the Business Dynamics Statistics of Human Capital Experimental Product

April 2025

Written by: MARTHA STINSON AND SEAN WANG

We introduce a new Census Bureau experimental product that provides statistics on the workforce composition of firms and its relationship to business dynamics.
Working Paper

Geographic Immobility in the United States

March 2025

Written by: MARK ELLIS, LEE FIORIO, AND THOMAS B. FOSTER

We use linked IRS and SSA data to study those in a cohort aged between 15 and 50 in 2001 who never migrated between states from 2001 to 2016.
Working Paper

Work Organization and Cumulative Advantage

March 2025

Written by: DYLAN NELSON, NATHAN WILMERS, AND LETIAN ZHANG

Job upgrading can raise pay for frontline workers, especially through on-the-job learning and greater task discretion.
Working Paper

Cognitive Testing for an Internet Self-Response Mode of the CPS

March 07, 2025

Written by: Rachel Stenger, Harmoni Noel, Patricia LeBaron, Y. Patrick Hsieh, Tim Flanigan, Madelyn Diaz, Alisú Schoua-Glusberg, Daniela Glusberg, Kim Cárdenas
Working Paper

Testing a Series of Categorical Earned Income Questions

March 07, 2025

Written by: Jennifer Sinibaldi
Working Paper

Debiasing Functions of Private Statistics in Postprocessing

February 25, 2025

Written by: Flavio Calmon, Elbert Du, Cynthia Dwork, Brian Finley, and Grigory Franguridi
Working Paper

Do Shortcut Checkboxes Help or Hurt in Web Surveys?

February 19, 2025

Written by: Jennifer Sinibaldi

Tested respondents’ receptivity to a checkbox that indicated an “all year” response to a question asking how many paychecks were received during the year.
Working Paper

Peer Income Exposure Across the Income Distribution

February 2025

Written by: MICHELLE SPIEGEL, LEAH CLARK, THURSTON DOMINA, EMILY PENNER, PAUL HANSELMAN, PAUL Y. YOO, AND ANDREW PENNER

High-income students are relatively isolated from their lower-income peers, while low- and middle-income students have fairly even peer income distributions.
Working Paper

The Intangible Divide: Why Do So Few Firms Invest in Innovation?

February 2025

Written by: JAMES BESSEN AND XIUPENG WANG

R&D and software investment are dominated by a few hundred firms; most firms invest nothing. Why? One factor: rivals’ technology reduces innovation incentives.
Working Paper

Corporate Share Repurchase Policies and Labor Share

February 2025

Written by: XUDONG FU, DARREN KISGEN, AND LEI KONG

This paper finds no link between increased share repurchases and declining labor share, casting doubts on the current policies on buyback.
Working Paper

The Design of Sampling Strata for the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey

February 2025

Written by: JONATHAN EGGLESTON, LINDEN MCBRIDE, AND MARK KLEE

We produce a stratified sampling frame for the FoodAPS survey by applying Random Forest classifiers to administrative and survey data.
Working Paper

Leveraged Payouts: How Using New Debt to Pay Returns in Private Equity Affects Firms, Employees, Creditors, and Investors

February 2025

Written by: ABHISHEK BHARDWAJ, ABHINAV GUPTA, AND SABRINA T. HOWELL

We show how a large increase in leverage affects bankruptcy risk and real outcomes, focusing on the setting of dividend recaps in private equity.
Working Paper

Geographic Disparities in Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia Mortality in the US: Comparing Impacts of Place of Birth and Place of Residence

February 2025

Written by: JASON FLETCHER, KATIE JAJTNER, AND JINHO KIM

NLMS data shows that late life state of residence contributes more than state of birth in determining variation in Alzheimer’s Disease mortality in the US.
Working Paper

Applying Current Core Based Statistical Area Standards to Historical Census Data, 1940-2020

January 2025

Written by: TODD GARDNER

This study applies the current rules for defining Core Based Statiscial Areas to historical population, commuting and geographic data from 1940 to 2020.
Working Paper

Workers’ Job Prospects and Young Firm Dynamics

January 2025

Written by: SEULA KIM

This paper investigates how worker beliefs and job prospects impact the wages and growth of young firms, as well as the aggregate economy.
Working Paper

Business Dynamics Statistics of Coastal Counties: A Description of Differences in Coastal Areas Over Time

January 2025

Written by: MELISSA CHOW AND MARTHA STINSON

This paper describes the Business Dynamics Statistics of Coastal Counties, which shows patterns in business growth and decline in coastal watershed areas.

Page Last Revised - January 7, 2025

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