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Bureau of Labor Statistics > Consumer Expenditure Survey > Home

Consumption Symposium: Broadening Our Understanding of Household Consumption and Measurement, September 22-23, 2021

Imputing Service Flows from Durables (PDF)

Jim Sullivan - University of Notre Dame - James.X.Sullivan.197@nd.edu

Service flows from durables such as houses, cars, and major appliances are an important component of consumption, but these flows are not directly captured in surveys. At least some of these flows can be imputed using information that is currently being collected in surveys. In this presentation, we discuss these and other approaches used for imputing service flows from durables, and we highlight the merits and limitations of such approaches. We show how different approaches affect the levels and changes over time of estimates of service flows, and how these different approaches affect the distribution of consumption using data from the Consumer Expenditure Surveys (CE) Interview Survey. In addition, we present evidence on the quality of reporting of durables such as owned homes and vehicles in the CE.

Last Modified Date: November 10, 2021