NBER Publications by Sharon R. Scott

The growth in single-person households is a pervasive behavioral phenomenon in the United States in the post-war period. In this paper we investigate determinants of the propensity to live alone, using 1970 data across states for single men and women ages 25 to 34 and for elderly widows. Income level appears to be a major determinant of the propensity to live alone. The estimated cross-state equations track about three-quarters of the increase in the propensity to live alone between 1950—1976 and suggest that income growth has been the principal identified influence. Other variables found to affect (positively) the propensity to live alone include mobility, schooling level, and for young people a measure of social climate; non-whites appear to have a somewhat lower propensity to live alo...

No cross-sectional consumer price index is currently available by state, and the BLS's cross-sectional "family budget" index for metropolitan areas is not well-suited for cross-state analyses. In this paper we propose an algorithm for constructing a state-specific Laspeyres price index using conveniently available information from the Census of Business and the Survey of Current Business. The index is calculated for each state (and for Census divisions and regions) for 1967 and 1972. Its characteristics are discussed, and it is used to deflate nominal per capita income by state. Comparing "real" income by state with nominal income by state, the former has substantially less variation cross-sectionally but greater variation over time (between 1967 and 1972).