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Office of Survey Methods Research
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Published Year: 2009
Survey/Program(s): Occupational Employment Statistics (OES)
Catalog: Statistical Survey Paper
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Application of Piecewise Quadratic Density Estimator to OES Wage Data
Abstract
The Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) collects occupational wage data within pre-defined wage intervals. Current practice is for OES to use point data from the National Compensation Survey (NCS), also conducted by BLS, to derive interval means used in calculation of occupational wage estimates. In past analysis this method corrected the slight bias associated with using interval mid points or geometric means. This paper examines an alternative for estimating wages when employment has been reported in pre-defined wage intervals. We apply O’Malley’s Piecewise Quadratic Density Estimator (PQDE) to OES wage interval data. This paper assesses the resulting OES wage estimates.