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Consumer Expenditure Surveys
Bureau of Labor Statistics > Consumer Expenditure Survey > Publications

Consumer Expenditure Surveys (CE) Microdata Users’ Workshop and Survey Methods Symposium, July 17‐19, 2019

Thank You for a Highly Successful 2019 Workshop!

The 2019 Consumer Expenditure Surveys Microdata Users' Workshop (July 17-19) has concluded. Based on comments from attendees and observations of planners, this workshop was well received and highly successful. The planners wish to thank our presenters (see below) for a series of excellent presentations. Of course, there would be no workshop without attendees, and we appreciate their investment of time, effort, and funds to spend up to three days with us at the BLS. Along with those in attendance from the federal government and the private sector, at least one Ph.D. candidate and several professors represented various colleges or universities. While most attendees and presenters were based in the U.S., Canada was also represented.

Request for Comments

The workshop concluded with a feedback session to obtain comments from attendees to help us maintain and improve quality of future workshops. If you attended and provided comments, thank you. However, perhaps you did not have an opportunity to comment on a specific topic; you have had additional thoughts after the workshop; or you would like to follow up on a topic discussed during the session. If so, we invite you to participate by providing your comments at any time by email.

Looking Ahead

Next workshop. The fifteenth annual workshop will be held July 22-24, 2020. To those who have never attended a workshop, but are interested in doing so, the planners look forward to answering any questions you may have.. If you have already attended one, we hope you will join us again. The format varies from year to year as we incorporate recommendations from attendees, so that your experience at the next workshop will differ from that of the workshop(s) you previously attended. Regardless, the workshop is always free of charge to participants; that is, there is never a registration fee for the workshop.

Call for Presenters. Note that it is not too early to consider presenting your work at the 2020 event. Each year, we seek presentations giving practical examples of how the CE microdata can be used in research. Work from first-time and novice users is as welcome as work from experienced users. We only ask that your emphasis be on how the data were used, questions or problems encountered, and similar discussion (i.e., application of the data, rather than hypotheses tested or statistical methods used). If you would like to consider presenting, details regarding the 2020 call for presenters will be posted soon.

Presenters at the 2019 Consumer Expenditure Surveys Workshop

Research Presenters (in order of presentation)

  • Kennan Cepa,* Ph.D. Candidate (Sociology), University of Pennsylvania: In What Contexts do Households Maintain their Advantage? Mechanisms for Widening Household Expenditures on Higher Education across the Income Distribution.
  • Monika Hu, Ph.D.,* Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Statistics, Vassar College: Using CE Microdata in Undergraduate Statistics Courses. Dr. Hu also described her experiences in the ASA/BLS/NSF Fellowship program as part of a panel entitled: Access to Restricted Data Files for Select Statistical Research Projects.
  • Jonathan Peters, Ph.D.** The College of Staten Island/Research Fellow, University Transportation Research Center: Examining Changes in Households Spending Patterns in Response to Changes in Transportation Usage and Transportation Unit Costs.
  • Lyubov Kurkalova, Ph.D.,* Professor of Economics, North Carolina A&T: Opportunities and Challenges of using the CE Microdata to Study Food Deserts in North Carolina.

* First-time attendee.
** Presenter at previous workshop.

BLS Presenters and Instructors (in order of presentation, where applicable)

  • Steve Henderson
  • Adam Safir
  • Jimmy Choi
  • Taylor Wilson
  • Aaron Cobet
  • Brett Creech, Workshop Coordinator
  • Brian Nix
  • Geoffrey Paulin
  • Julie Sullivan
  • Barbara Johnson-Cox
  • Clayton Knappenberger
  • Evan Hubener
  • Sally Reyes Morales
  • Special thanks to Charlotte Irby, who delivered a presentation on the process for submitting articles for publication in the Monthly Labor Review. Also, thanks to Erica Yu, Research Psychologist, who collected feedback from participants.
  • In addition, Arcenis Rojas, GRA, Inc., presented a brief training session on using CE microdata with R software. Mr. Rojas is a former member of the CE staff.

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Last Modified Date: August 7, 2019