CPS ASEC (March) Programs

Stata programs below create the CEPR March CPS Uniform Extracts, from 1980 to 2018. These programs generate variables containing supplemental information to the core Basic CPS variables. Selected Basic CPS variables are also extracted to CEPR March extract. It should be noted that the supplemental variables specific to March CPS are representative of data in the preceding year of survey, while the Basic CPS variables are representative of data in the month of March during the year of survey.

These programs are the major source for information on our extracts. The S tata code show the changes we have made to the original raw March CPS variables in order to create our extract.

While you can always download the CEPR March CPS data, these programs provide clear documentation of the CEPR March variables. In addition, you can edit the do-files to create your own modifications to the CEPR March extracts.

To run the CEPR March CPS programs, you first need to purchase the March CPS extract created by the Unicon Research Corporation, which are the underlying source of the CEPR March extracts from 1980-2013. You will also need to download the raw CPS March data from the Census Bureau’s FTP page starting in survey year 2014. Load all the files below into the same directory. For years 1979 through 2004, you will need to download the revised health insurance data from the Census Bureau website to a different directory. For things to run smoothly, you’ll have to adjust the directory structure at the top of the cepr_march_master.do and cepr_march_healthxtra.do files to match the directory structure in your computer. Once this has been sorted out, run the CPS March master “do file” in Stata.

Since we regularly update files, we recommend that if you use the CEPR March extracts for a particular project that you copy the versions of the data files you use in your analysis into a write-protected directory. That way, you’ll always be able to reproduce your earlier analysis, even if we’ve made subsequent revisions to the CEPR extracts.

Download the release of CEPR March CPS programs, Version 1.1:

Here are the individual files contained in the zipped file above: