Affiliations: [a] Center for Economic Studies, US Census Bureau,
Washington, DC 20233-6300, USA. E-mail:
[email protected]
| [b] Center for Economic Studies, US Census Bureau, 4700
Silver Hill Road, Washington, DC 20233-6300, USA. Tel.: +1 301 763 1862; Fax: +1
301 457 1235; E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract: This paper has two aims: first to describe methods, issues, and outcomes involved
in matching data from the Insurance Component of the Medical Expenditure Panel
Survey (MEPS-IC) to other business microdata collected by the US Census Bureau,
and second to present some simple results that illustrate the usefulness of such
combined data. We present the results of linking the MEPS-IC with data from the
1997 Economic Censuses (EC), but also discuss other possible sources of business
data. An issue in any linkage is whether the linked sample remains
representative and large enough to be useful. The EC data are attractive
because, given the survey's broad coverage and large sample, most of the MEPS-IC
sample can be matched to it. We use the combined EC/MEPS-IC data to construct
productivity measures that are useful auxiliary data in examining employers'
health insurance offering decisions.
Keywords: Business data, health insurance, matched data, labor productivity
