Microdata Methods and Practice

supported by the EU 6th Research Framework and Marie Curie Research Training Actions

Microdata, the survey data recording the economic and social behaviour of individuals, firms and other decision making agents, and the environment in which they exist, is an essential tool for the understanding of economic and social interactions, and the design of government policy. Many important questions about the behaviour of people, households, firms and institutions can only be addressed using microdata. Analysis of microdata improves understanding of the dynamics of individual behaviour, of the variation in the experience and responses of individuals and gives insight into the distributional impact of policy interventions.

The last ten years has seen a rapid growth in the questions posed of these types of data, their availability, the computing technology available to process them and in the research tools available for their analysis. Much of the recent rapid development of analytic methods has taken place in the United States although European researchers have made significant contributions, stimulated in part by the rich data resources available in Europe. Further, the dissemination of these latest methods to applied researchers and policy analysts is far more developed in the US. The Network aims to keep European researchers contributing at the expanding methodological frontier of this subject and to facilitate the take up of these methods by applied researchers in Europe.

The objectives of the network are as follows.

• To provide a European focus for, and engage in the development of, microdata research methods.
• To conduct best practice quantitative social science research based on microdata resources and methods.
• To stimulate development of microdata resources, survey development and design.
• To stimulate development of skills in microdata methods and practice and appreciation of their strengths and weaknesses amongst academic researchers and users in the public and private sectors.
• To provide a research environment in which researchers and users interact while addressing research and policy questions.