National Academies Press: OpenBook

Measuring What We Spend: Toward a New Consumer Expenditure Survey (2013)

Chapter: Appendix G: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff

« Previous: Appendix F: Redesign Options Workshop Agenda
Suggested Citation:"Appendix G: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2013. Measuring What We Spend: Toward a New Consumer Expenditure Survey. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13520.
×

Appendix G

Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff

DON A. DILLMAN (Chair) is Regents professor in the Department of Sociology at Washington State University. He also serves as the deputy director for research and development in the Social and Economic Sciences Research Center at Washington State University. From 1991 to 1995, he served as the senior survey methodologist in the Office of the Director at the U.S. Census Bureau. His work at the Census Bureau resulted in his receiving the Roger Herriot Award for Innovation in Federal Statistics in 2000. He is recognized internationally as a major contributor to the development of modern mail, telephone, and Internet survey methods. Throughout his time at Washington State University, he has maintained an active research program on the improvement of survey methods and how information technologies influence rural development. He has served as investigator on more than 80 grants and contracts worth approximately $12.5 million, and written 13 books and more than 235 other publications. He holds numerous memberships in professional organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Sociological Association, and American Statistical Association. He served as past president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research and the Rural Sociological Society. He has a B.A. degree in agronomy, an M.S. degree in rural sociology, and a Ph.D. degree in sociology, all from Iowa State University.

DAVID M. BETSON is an associate professor of public policy and economics in the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame. His research has focused on the impact of tax and transfer programs on the economy and the distribution of income. Of particular interest is child support

Suggested Citation:"Appendix G: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2013. Measuring What We Spend: Toward a New Consumer Expenditure Survey. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13520.
×

policy. He has written academic papers and consulted with numerous state governments on the development of their child support guidelines. In 2007, he was appointed to the Washington State Commission on the Review of Child Support Guidelines. He holds memberships in the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management and the American Economic Association. He has a B.A. degree in economics and physics from Kalamazoo College, and an M.A. degree in economics and a Ph.D. degree in economics, both from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

MICK P. COUPER is a research professor in the Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, at the University of Michigan, and in the Joint Program in Survey Methodology at the University of Maryland and University of Michigan and Westat. He is also a faculty associate in the Population Studies Center and the Comprehensive Cancer Center, both at the University of Michigan. His current research includes survey nonresponse, design and implementation of survey data collection, effects of technology on the survey process, and computer-assisted interviewing, including both interviewer-administered (CATI and CAPI) and self-administered (Web, audio-CASI, IVR) surveys. Many of his current projects focus on the design of Web surveys. He is the recipient of several awards, including the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) book award (with Robert M. Groves) and the AAPOR award for innovation. He is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association and a member of several other professional organizations including AAPOR and the European Survey Research Association (ESRA). He has an M.Soc.Sc. degree in sociology from the University of Cape Town, an M.A. degree in applied social research from the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. degree in sociology from Rhodes University in South Africa.

ROBERT F. GILLINGHAM is an independent consultant from Potomac Falls, Virginia. Current and recent clients include the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the OECD. Prior to becoming a consultant, he held several positions at the International Monetary Fund, including chief of the Expenditure Policy Division and chief of the Poverty and Social Impact Analysis Group. He also worked at the U.S. Department of the Treasury—the last 10 years as deputy assistant secretary for economic policy. He started his career at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, rising to the position of deputy associate commissioner for prices and living conditions. He is currently a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and has previously served on the board of directors of the Western Economic Association International and as an associate editor of Journal of Business and Economic Statistics. He is widely published, and his articles have appeared in numerous publications, including the Review of Economics and

Suggested Citation:"Appendix G: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2013. Measuring What We Spend: Toward a New Consumer Expenditure Survey. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13520.
×

Statistics, Energy Journal, and Journal of Economic Business and Statistics. He has a B.A. degree in economics from Haverford College and a Ph.D. degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

CAROL C. HOUSE (Study Director) is a senior program officer for the Committee on National Statistics. She retired from the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), USDA, in 2010, where she was deputy administrator for programs and products and chair of the Agricultural Statistics Board. Her previous positions at NASS included associate administrator, director of research and development, and director of survey management. She has provided statistical consulting on sample surveys in China, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Poland. She is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. Her graduate training was in mathematics at the University of Maryland.

MICHAEL W. LINK is vice president for Research Methods Center of Excellence and chief methodologist at the Nielsen Company in Atlanta, Georgia. Prior to this he was a senior survey methodologist and acting branch chief at the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At Nielsen, he is responsible for identifying and monitoring the implementation of the most cost-effective methodological/operational solutions in order to constantly improve the quality of research methodologies. His work at the Center for Excellence focuses on identifying problems related to, and solutions for, improving the quality of research methodologies, including analysis of existing data sources, and implementation of best practices for these research methods. He has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters in journals such as Public Opinion Quarterly, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Journal of Official Statistics, Survey Research Methods, and Field Methods, and presented research findings at more than 150 national and international scientific conferences. He has a B.S. degree in biology from Georgia State University, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in political science from the University of South Carolina.

BRUCE D. MEYER is the McCormick Foundation professor of public policy in the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. Prior to this appointment, he was a professor in the Economics Department at Northwestern University, where he taught for 17 years. His current research includes studies of poverty and inequality, tax policy, welfare policy, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, disability, the health care safety net, labor supply, and the accuracy of household surveys. Previously, he was a visiting faculty member at Harvard University,

Suggested Citation:"Appendix G: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2013. Measuring What We Spend: Toward a New Consumer Expenditure Survey. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13520.
×

University College London, and Princeton University. He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and the Conference on Research on Income and Wealth. He has been associated with the Institute for Research on Poverty and is a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research. He has served as an advisor to the U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, Human Resources Development Canada, Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, and Mathematica Policy Research. He has B.A. and M.A. degrees in economics from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. degree in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

SARAH M. NUSSER is a professor in the Department of Statistics and a faculty member in the Human Computer Interaction Graduate Program at Iowa State University. She is also a faculty member in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Graduate Program at Iowa State University. Prior to this she was a senior research fellow at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and a statistician at the Proctor and Gamble Company. Her research interests include using geospatial data in survey data collection and estimation, estimation methods for land cover map accuracy assessment, and sample design and measurement in surveys. Her experience includes service on the Census Advisory Committee of Professional Associations and with administrative records databases through research involving welfare program evaluation and numerous operational survey projects. She received the Board of Regents Award for Faculty Excellence at Iowa State University in 2010 and the Distinguished Achievement Award from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and the Environment in 2007. She has a B.S. degree in botany from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, M.S. degrees in botany and statistics, and a Ph.D. degree in statistics from Iowa State University.

ANDY PEYTCHEV is a senior survey methodologist in the Program for Research in Survey Methodology at RTI International and instructor in the Odum Institute at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has collaborated on various experiments on optimization of data collection designs, aimed at reduction of cost, bias, and variance of survey estimates. He has led research on the design and redesign of major government surveys and is principal investigator on grants to study methods for estimation, reduction, and correction for survey nonresponse. His work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Public Opinion Quarterly, Journal of Official Statistics, and Sociological Methods & Research. He has received recognition for his service as a founding associate editor of Survey Practice and is currently an associate editor of Public Opinion

Suggested Citation:"Appendix G: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2013. Measuring What We Spend: Toward a New Consumer Expenditure Survey. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13520.
×

Quarterly. He is a member of the American Statistical Association and the American Association for Public Opinion Research, for which he has served on various committees. He has a B.A. degree in marketing from Concord University, an M.S. degree in survey research and methodology from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and a Ph.D. degree in survey methodology from the University of Michigan.

MARK M. PIERZCHALA is a private consultant providing systems, methods, and operations consulting services on survey-taking to private and government clients. Previously, he was a senior research statistician at the National Agricultural Statistics Service, where he became well known for his knowledge of data editing systems and the data cleaning methods they represented. He has a long history in data collection and data editing systems for complex U.S. and Canadian government surveys. He is an expert in the use of the Blaise survey processing system for data collection and postcollection editing. Currently, he is assisting with the testing and documentation of the emerging Blaise Next Generation system. At Westat, he was a senior systems analyst and was head of the Blaise Services Group. He helped the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau implement CAPI for the Consumer Expenditure Survey. Later at Mathematica, he had major roles in establishing the Blaise system for all modes of data collection, made methodological and systems advances for multimode surveys, and was the systems lead on complex multi-instrument studies. He has a B.S. degree in mathematics from Central Michigan University and an M.S. degree in mathematical statistics from Michigan State University.

ROBERT SANTOS is the senior institute methodologist in the Statistical Methods Group at the Urban Institute in Washington, DC. Prior to this,he was executive vice president and partner of NuStats Partners, LP, a social science research firm based in Austin, Texas. He also worked at NORC at the University of Chicago and the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan. His expertise is in sampling, survey design, and survey methods and operations. His professional credits include numerous reports and papers and leadership roles in survey research associations. He has served as a member of the Census Advisory Committee of Professional Associations and on the editorial board of Public Opinion Quarterly. He has held numerous elected and appointed leadership positions in both the American Statistical Association and the American Association for Public Opinion Research. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and a recipient of its 2006 Founder’s Award for excellence in survey statistics and contributions to the statistical community. He has a B.A. degree in mathematics from Trinity University and an M.A. degree in statistics from the University of Michigan.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix G: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2013. Measuring What We Spend: Toward a New Consumer Expenditure Survey. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13520.
×

MICHAEL F. SCHOBER is dean and professor of psychology at the New School for Social Research in New York City. He has taught numerous graduate and undergraduate courses on subjects including human computer interaction, research methods, and psycholinguistics. His research focuses on interaction in survey interviews and the effects of new technologies on communication. He is the editor of the journal Discourse Processes, a position he has held for the past five years. He is widely published, and his articles have appeared in numerous publications including Cognitive Psychology, Journal of Official Statistics, and Public Opinion Quarterly. He holds many memberships in professional organizations, including the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, and the American Association for Public Opinion Research. He has a Sc.B. degree in cognitive science from Brown University and a Ph.D. degree in psychology from Stanford University.

MELVIN STEPHENS, JR., is an associate professor of economics and associate professor of public policy at the University of Michigan and a research affiliate and faculty associate in the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. He is also a research associate in labor studies at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Prior to this, he was the Raymond John Wean Foundation Career Development associate professor of economics in the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University. His research interests cover such areas as displaced workers, household consumption decisions, and aging and retirement. Currently, he is on the editorial board of The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy and is a member of numerous organizations, including the American Economic Association and Society of Labor Economists. He previously served as a referee for several publications, including the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics and has been a reviewer for the National Institute on Aging and the National Science Foundation, among others. His work is widely published, having appeared in such publications as the American Economic Review, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, the Economic Journal, and the Review of Economics and Statistics. He has a B.A. degree in economics and mathematics from the University of Maryland and a Ph.D. degree in economics from the University of Michigan.

CLYDE TUCKER is a former senior survey methodologist at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) where he served for more than 25 years. While at BLS, he cochaired the Interagency Research Group, which was responsible for revising the methodology for collecting information on race and ethnicity in federal surveys. He also served as a statistical consultant

Suggested Citation:"Appendix G: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2013. Measuring What We Spend: Toward a New Consumer Expenditure Survey. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13520.
×

to the bipartisan Congressional Commission that assessed the impact of the Family and Medical Leave Act, and was a member of the committee overseeing the methodology of the Current Population Survey. His research interests include telephone survey design, survey nonresponse, and measurement error. He is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA), is a past chair of the Government Statistics Section of ASA, and has held numerous positions on the AAPOR National Council. He is also a past president of the Washington Statistical Society. He is a past winner of both the Herriot Award for Innovation in Federal Statistics from the American Statistical Association and the Innovator Award from the American Association for Public Opinion Research. In election years 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2012, he headed the decision desk for CNN. He has an M.S. degree in statistics and a Ph.D. degree in political science, both from the University of Georgia.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix G: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2013. Measuring What We Spend: Toward a New Consumer Expenditure Survey. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13520.
×

This page is blank

Suggested Citation:"Appendix G: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2013. Measuring What We Spend: Toward a New Consumer Expenditure Survey. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13520.
×
Page 235
Suggested Citation:"Appendix G: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2013. Measuring What We Spend: Toward a New Consumer Expenditure Survey. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13520.
×
Page 236
Suggested Citation:"Appendix G: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2013. Measuring What We Spend: Toward a New Consumer Expenditure Survey. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13520.
×
Page 237
Suggested Citation:"Appendix G: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2013. Measuring What We Spend: Toward a New Consumer Expenditure Survey. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13520.
×
Page 238
Suggested Citation:"Appendix G: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2013. Measuring What We Spend: Toward a New Consumer Expenditure Survey. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13520.
×
Page 239
Suggested Citation:"Appendix G: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2013. Measuring What We Spend: Toward a New Consumer Expenditure Survey. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13520.
×
Page 240
Suggested Citation:"Appendix G: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2013. Measuring What We Spend: Toward a New Consumer Expenditure Survey. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13520.
×
Page 241
Suggested Citation:"Appendix G: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2013. Measuring What We Spend: Toward a New Consumer Expenditure Survey. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13520.
×
Page 242
Next: Committee on National Statistics »
Measuring What We Spend: Toward a New Consumer Expenditure Survey Get This Book
×
Buy Paperback | $50.00 Buy Ebook | $40.99
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

The Consumer Expenditure (CE) surveys are the only source of information on the complete range of consumers' expenditures and incomes in the United States, as well as the characteristics of those consumers. The CE consists of two separate surveys: (1) a national sample of households interviewed five times at three-month intervals; and (2) a separate national sample of households that complete two consecutive one-week expenditure diaries. For more than 40 years, these surveys, the responsibility of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), have been the principal source of knowledge about changing patterns of consumer spending in the U.S. population.

In February 2009, BLS initiated the Gemini Project, the aim of which is to redesign the CE surveys to improve data quality through a verifiable reduction in measurement error with a particular focus on underreporting. The Gemini Project initiated a series of information-gathering meetings, conference sessions, forums, and workshops to identify appropriate strategies for improving CE data quality. As part of this effort, BLS requested the National Research Council's Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) to convene an expert panel to build on the Gemini Project by conducting further investigations and proposing redesign options for the CE surveys.

The charge to the Panel on Redesigning the BLS Consumer Expenditure Surveys includes reviewing the output of a Gemini-convened data user needs forum and methods workshop and convening its own household survey producers workshop to obtain further input. In addition, the panel was tasked to commission options from contractors for consideration in recommending possible redesigns. The panel was further asked by BLS to create potential redesigns that would put a greater emphasis on proactive data collection to improve the measurement of consumer expenditures. Measuring What We Spend summarizes the deliberations and activities of the panel, discusses the conclusions about the uses of the CE surveys and why a redesign is needed, as well as recommendations for the future.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!