Abstract
The American Opportunity Study is an ongoing initiative to build the country’s capacity to access and analyze linked administrative data. It is best viewed as a population-level scaffolding on which other administrative data can then be hung. This scaffolding, if used as a stand-alone resource, will allow for long-run analyses of fundamental population and labor market processes. If combined with data from other sources, it will allow for long-run program evaluation and other experimental and quasi-experimental analyses. We discuss the current status of the American Opportunity Study, its potential to advance the field, remaining obstacles that must be overcome to build it, and how it can work within the guidelines suggested by the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking.
- © 2019 Russell Sage Foundation. Grusky, David B., Michael Hout, Timothy M. Smeeding, and C. Matthew Snipp. 2019. “The American Opportunity Study: A New Infrastructure for Monitoring Outcomes, Evaluating Policy, and Advancing Basic Science.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 5(2): 20–39. DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2019.5.2.02. The authors thank all of those who have inspired and advanced the ideas, concepts, and moving parts of the American Opportunity Study. We also thank the reviewers for their careful reading and excellent comments, David Chancellor for graphing assistance, and the Carnegie Corporation, the National Research Council, and Stanford University for their support of the AOS. The authors alone assume responsibility for all errors of omission and commission. Direct correspondence to: Timothy M. Smeeding at smeeding{at}wisc.edu, Department of Economics, 3464 Social Science Building, 1180 Observatory Dr., University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706.
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