title: Assessing the need for a new nationally representative household panel survey in the United States.
abstract: We introduce this special issue on the critical matter of whether the existing household panel surveys in the U.S. are adequate to address the important emerging social science and policy questions of the next few decades. We summarize the conference papers which address this issue in different domains. The papers detail many new and important emerging research questions but also identify key limitations in existing panels in addressing those questions. To address these limitations, we consider the advantages and disadvantages of initiating a new, general-purpose omnibus household panel in the U.S. We also discuss the particular benefits of starting new panels that have specific targeted domains such as child development, population health and health care. We also develop a list of valuable enhancements to existing panels which could address many of their limitations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Moffitt
authors.affiliation: Institute for Social Research, Department of Economics, and School of Public Policy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
authors.forename: Robert F
authors.initials: RF
authors.lastname: Schoeni
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics and Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.affiliation: Human Development and Social Policy, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
authors.forename: P Lindsay
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Chase-Lansdale
authors.affiliation: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
authors.forename: Mick P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Couper
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Ana V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Diez-Roux
authors.affiliation: Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
authors.forename: Erik
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hurst
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Judith A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Seltzer
keywords: Survey; economics; health research; sociology