Skip to Main Content

Econ 154: Economics of Discrimination: Labor

Organizations & Search Engines

Center for Labor Economics. UC Berkeley center promoting research in labor market issues and policies. 

Handbook of Labor Economics. Key reference handbook in labor economics, edited by Orley Ashenfelter and Richard Layard.

Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. Institute at UC Berkeley supporting multi-disiciplinary research on labor and employment relations.

Labor Economists Gateway.  Links to labor economists' web sites, research centers, institutes, statistics and datasets, journals, e-books, documents, and working papers.

NBER Labor Studies Program. NBER program studying issues of employment, compensation, determinants of unemployment, effects of labor unions, and benefits.

Society of Labor Economists. Primary academic association of U.S. labor economists, publisher of the Journal of Labor Economics.

Key Data Sources

Data.Census.Gov. Data from the decennial Census and the American Community Survey about households, education, income, businesses, home ownership, and more.

Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research(ICPSR). Data repository that hosts data from researchers and governments. See also the American Economic Review Open ICPSR repository.

Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS). From the Minnesota Population Center. Provides census and survey microdata from around the world integrated across time and space. Registration is required and is free. Includes:

  • IPUMS USA, U.S. census microdata. Data includes decennial censuses from 1790 to 2010 and American Community Surveys (ACS) from 2000 to the present. Includes complete count data for several censuses up to 1940.
  • IPUMS CPS. Microdata from the monthly U.S. labor force survey, the Current Population Survey (CPS), from 1962 to the present. Demographic and employment data as well as special topics such as fertility, tobacco use, volunteer activities, voter registration, internet use, food security, etc.
  • IPUMS International. Harmonized International Census microdata from countries around the world provided to IPUMS from National Statistical Offices.

Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics. Data products that characterize workforce dynamics for specific groups. See the Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI), LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES), Job-to-Job Flows (J2J), and Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes (PSEO).

National Longitudinal Surveys. Set of surveys gathering information at multiple points in time on the labor activities and other significant life events for individuals. For access to the microdata also see the NLS Investigator.

Neighborhood Change Database. (NOTE: Calnet ID Login is enabled no password needed). US tract-level data and maps from the 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010 decennial censuses with tract boundaries that are consistently defined across census years.

Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Longest running longitudinal household survey in the world, from University of Michigan with data on employment, income, wealth, expenditures, health, marriage, childbearing, child development, and other topics.

United States Census Bureau. The principal source of periodic U.S demographic data. Major programs include the Census of Population and Housing and the American Community Survey.

United States Bureau of Labor Statistics.(BLS). Data on inflation and prices, unemployment, productivity, wages, and much more. The BLS manages the following surveys and statistics portals: