Internal Migration in the United States: A Comparative Assessment of the Utility of the Consumer Credit Panel

Jack DeWaard, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Janna E. Johnson , University of Minnesota
Stephan Whitaker, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Given problems with data on internal migration in the United States, we introduce and provide the first comparative assessment of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Consumer Credit Panel (hereafter, CCP) to demonstrate the utility of these data for research on internal migration. The CCP permits detailed analyses of migration, both temporally and spatially. After introducing these data, we compare period and cohort estimates of internal migration from the CCP to similar estimates derived from the Internal Revenue Service, the American Community Survey, the Current Population Survey, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Survey of Income and Program Participation, and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. We then proceed to demonstrate some of the unique advantages of the CCP. Our results establish the utility of the CCP for research on internal migration in the United States, and we conclude by identifying some profitable directions for future research.

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 Presented in Session 145. New Data Sources and Sampling Strategies for Identifying Migrants