New Census Research Data Center Opens Doors to Chicago Scholars

Fall 2002, Volume 24, Number 1

CRDC Executive Director Bhash Mazumder

A new research center, sponsored in part by IPR, is offering qualified Chicago-area researchers access to a rich, relatively untapped source of Census Bureau economic micro-data.

The Chicago Research Data Center (CRDC), housed at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in the Loop, is now up and running after two years of planning. Researchers with approved projects — after a stringent review process — will gain access to longitudinal data sets that cover business establishments and firms, as well as households and individuals.

Northwestern and the Federal Reserve Bank will share costs through 2004 with a consortium of Chicago research institutions that includes the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Argonne National Laboratory.

The National Science Foundation has awarded a $300,000 grant to IPR to help support the CRDC over its first three years. After that, the planners expect the center to become self-sustaining.

	CRDC Chair Gale Boyd at data center briefing for Northwestern researchers

“The center paves the way for new explorations of countless subjects, from the effects of neighborhoods on family well-being to the relationship between medical expenditures and health,” said IPR Director Fay Lomax Cook. “For the first time, researchers will be able to delve into key data that just haven’t been available in the Chicago area.”

U.S. law requires that the census microdata be kept confidential, restricting use of the data to secure RDC sites. Approved research projects must demonstrate scientific merit, satisfy stringent confidentiality requirements, and provide valuable feedback to the Census Bureau in order to improve its data programs. RDC operating procedures, strict security, and strong legal safeguards are designed to protect the confidentiality of these data. Researchers must obtain special sworn status and become officers of the Census Bureau.

A governing board chaired by Argonne economist Gale Boyd will review proposed projects for scientific merit, potential breaches of confidentiality, and other concerns.

“The CRDC will enable area scientists to conduct more powerful social research while protecting the confidentiality of data,” said IPR faculty fellow and statistics professor Bruce Spencer, principal investigator of the NSF grant.

Spencer points to a vast array of potential research topics that can benefit from use of the RDC. Among them are energy, the environment, and economic activity; changes in the structure of the U.S. and the Chicago economy; technological and organizational change; information dissemination; jobs, unemployment, and work retraining; crime, health, and child care; and immigration.

Several RDCs have been established since the Census Bureau’s Center for Economic Studies (CES) was created to handle access to microdata on businesses in 1982, but this is the first in the Chicago area. Other RDCs are located in California (at Berkeley and UCLA), Pittsburgh (at Carnegie Mellon), Durham (at Duke), and Boston (in partnership with the National Bureau of Economic Research). Earlier this fall, an RDC was opened in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan.

CRDC Executive Director Bhash Mazumder describes the new facility as “a win-win situation for researchers and the bureau.” The center will develop new data products and documentation for the bureau, while providing researchers with access to previously unavailable microdata.

Mazumder has used the Census microdata in his own research to create a large intergenerational sample with earnings histories for fathers and their children for a project on intergenerational mobility. Another researcher used block-level data from a West Coast city that explained a large amount of observed racial segregation using characteristics of households, income, education, and language proficiency.
New projects starting shortly in the Chicago RDC will tackle health insurance and immigrant assimilation in the U.S. labor market.

Former IPR Associate Director Joseph Altonji was instrumental in bringing the center to Chicago. Altonji was principal investigator for the NSF grant before accepting an appointment as DeWitt Cuyler Professor of Economics at Yale University this fall.

The RDC has three review cycles a year: January 15, May 15, and September 15. CRDC Administrator Lynn Riggs is the liaison between the researchers and the Census Bureau and will help scholars with proposals.

The $1.3-million in funding by the consortium is expected to cover the fees of approved researchers at their institutions over the next three years.

Mazumder can be contacted at bmazumde@frbchi.org or by phone at 312-322-8166.