IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ott/wpaper/e1306e.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Opting or Not Opting to Share Income Tax Information with the Census:Does it Affect Research Findings?

Author

Listed:
  • Pierre Brochu

    (Department of Economics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON)

  • Louis-Philippe Morin

    (Department of Economics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON)

  • Jean-Michel Billette

Abstract

This paper examines the implication of the decision to give 2006 Census respondent the option of letting Statistics Canada access their income tax files rather than answering income related questions directly. We find that giving respondents the option to share their income tax files (or not) adds a confounding factor when it comes to measuring family income inequality, particularly for the bottom tail of the distribution. The consent decision does not, however, materially affect the estimation of standard wage equations.

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre Brochu & Louis-Philippe Morin & Jean-Michel Billette, 2013. "Opting or Not Opting to Share Income Tax Information with the Census:Does it Affect Research Findings?," Working Papers E1306E, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ott:wpaper:e1306e
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://sciencessociales.uottawa.ca/economics/sites/socialsciences.uottawa.ca.economics/files/1306e.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Card & Thomas Lemieux, 2001. "Can Falling Supply Explain the Rising Return to College for Younger Men? A Cohort-Based Analysis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 705-746.
    2. Murphy, Kevin M & Welch, Finis, 1990. "Empirical Age-Earnings Profiles," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(2), pages 202-229, April.
    3. Brahim Boudarbat & Thomas Lemieux & W. Craig Riddell, 2010. "The Evolution of the Returns to Human Capital in Canada, 1980-2005," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 36(1), pages 63-89, March.
    4. Bound, John & Brown, Charles & Mathiowetz, Nancy, 2001. "Measurement error in survey data," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 59, pages 3705-3843, Elsevier.
    5. Rebecca M. Blank & Kerwin Kofi Charles & James M. Sallee, 2009. "A Cautionary Tale about the Use of Administrative Data: Evidence from Age of Marriage Laws," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 128-149, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Adnan, Wifag & Zhang, Jonathan & Zheng, Angela, 2023. "Intergenerational Mobility of Immigrants by Refugee Status: An Analysis of Linked Landing Files and Tax Records," IZA Discussion Papers 16471, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. John B. Burbidge & Kirk A. Collins & James B. Davies & Lonnie Magee, 2012. "Effective tax and subsidy rates on human capital in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 45(1), pages 189-219, February.
    2. Florentino Felgueroso & Sergi Jiménez Martín, 2009. "The "New Growth Model". How and with Whom?," Working Papers 2009-39, FEDEA.
    3. Kadija Charni, 2016. "Is it Better to Work When We Are Older? An Empirical Comparison Between France and Great Britain," Working Papers halshs-01393268, HAL.
    4. David A. Green & Benjamin M. Sand, 2015. "Has the Canadian labour market polarized?," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(2), pages 612-646, May.
    5. Angel de la Fuente & Antonio Ciccone, 2003. "Human capital in a global and knowledge-based economy," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 562.03, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    6. Fernandez Sierra, Manuel & Messina, Julián, 2017. "Skill Premium, Labor Supply and Changes in the Structure of Wages in Latin America," IZA Discussion Papers 10718, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
    7. Fernández, Manuel & Messina, Julián, 2018. "Skill premium, labor supply, and changes in the structure of wages in Latin America," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 555-573.
    8. Thomas Lemieux, 2014. "Occupations, fields of study and returns to education," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(4), pages 1047-1077, November.
    9. Erik Hurst & Geng Li & Benjamin Pugsley, 2014. "Are Household Surveys Like Tax Forms? Evidence from Income Underreporting of the Self-Employed," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(1), pages 19-33, March.
    10. Heckman, James J. & Lochner, Lance John & Todd, Petra E., 2003. "Fifty Years of Mincer Earnings Regressions," IZA Discussion Papers 775, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Deniz Ozabaci & Daniel Henderson, 2015. "Additive kernel estimates of returns to schooling," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 227-251, February.
    12. Morin, Louis-Philippe, 2015. "Cohort size and youth earnings: Evidence from a quasi-experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 99-111.
    13. Lance Lochner & Alexander Monge-Naranjo, 2014. "Student Loans and Repayment: Theory, Evidence and Policy," Working Papers 2014-40, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    14. Emanuelle Bourbeau & Pierre Lefebvre & Philip Merrigan, 2011. "Provincial Returns to Education for 21 to 35 year-olds: Results from the 1991-2006 Canadian Analytic Censuses Files," Cahiers de recherche 1106, CIRPEE.
    15. Costas Meghir & Luigi Pistaferri, 2004. "Income Variance Dynamics and Heterogeneity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(1), pages 1-32, January.
    16. Joanna Tyrowicz & Lucas van der Velde, 2014. "Can We Really Explain Worker Flows in Transition Economies?," Working Papers 2014-28, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    17. Mary O’Mahony & Philip Stevens, 2009. "Output and productivity growth in the education sector: comparisons for the US and UK," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 177-194, June.
    18. Hendricks, Lutz, 2016. "Accounting for changing returns to experience," CFS Working Paper Series 558, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    19. James J. Heckman & Lance J. Lochner & Petra E. Todd, 2008. "Earnings Functions and Rates of Return," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(1), pages 1-31.
    20. Jacob Schwartz, 2018. "Schooling Choice, Labour Market Matching, and Wages," Papers 1803.09020, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2019.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Census; record linking; consent; income inequality; wage equation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C31 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions; Social Interaction Models
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ott:wpaper:e1306e. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Aggey Semenov (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deottca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.