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Occupational Wages around the World (OWW) Database

Richard B. Freeman

Harvard University

National Bureau of Economic Research

London School of Economics

Remco H. Oostendorp

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Tinbergen Institute

 

DATA

OWW3 database

Stata
(self-extracting, original)

csv

ASCII
comma-separated variables

oww3.zip (4.1 Mb)

oww3.dta (19.4 Mb)

oww3.csv (47.9 Mb)

oww3.asc (47.9 Mb)

You will need a major database, statistical program, or programming language to use these files. This dataset is too large to load completely into MS Excel 2000, which has a maximum of 65,536 observations, though Access can be used to read the ASCII datafile. Users without STATA may be interested in STAT/TRANSFER. This program can translate STATA files into other formats including other statistical packages, database packages and spreadsheets. Among statistical packages supports are SPSS, SAS, and Systat.

NBER internal users can access the data from a UNIX shell at /home/data/oww5308

Documentation

Variable List

The database contains the following variables (wage variables reported in bold are recommended for use - see the note below):

OWW3 Variable Label
y0            year                             
y1             country code (from ILO October Inquiry)
country_code  country code (iso3)                                                                      
country_name  country name
y3            industry code (from ILO October Inquiry)                                                 
isic88 International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC-88)
y4            occupation code (from ILO October Inquiry)
isco88 International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-1988)
hw1wl_current hourly: standard data (no calibration) (lex), LCU (reported)
hw2wl_current hourly: country-specific calibration (lex), LCU (reported)
hw3wl_current hourly: country-specific calibration with imputation (lex), LCU (reported)               
hw4wl_current hourly: uniform calibration (lex), LCU (reported)
hw1wl_present hourly: standard data (no calibration) (lex), LCU (present-day)
hw2wl_present hourly: country-specific calibration (lex), LCU (present-day)
hw3wl_present hourly: country-specific calibration with imputation (lex), LCU (present-day)
hw4wl_present hourly: uniform calibration (lex), LCU (present-day)                      
hw2wu_current hourly: country-specific calibration (uni), LCU (reported)
hw3wu_current hourly: country-specific calibration with imputation (uni), LCU (reported)
hw4wu_current hourly: uniform calibration (uni), LCU (reported)
hw2wu_present hourly: country-specific calibration (uni), LCU (present-day)
hw3wu_present hourly: country-specific calibration with imputation (uni), LCU (present-day)
hw4wu_present hourly: uniform calibration (uni), LCU (present-day)
hw1wl_us       hourly: standard data (no calibration) (lex), US$                                  
hw2wl_us      hourly: country-specific calibration (lex), US$                                          
hw3wl_us      hourly: country-specific calibration with imputation (lex), US$
hw4wl_us      hourly: uniform calibration (lex), US$                                                   
hw2wu_us      hourly: country-specific calibration (uni), US$                                           
hw3wu_us      hourly: country-specific calibration with imputation (uni), US$
hw4wu_us      hourly: uniform calibration (uni), US$                                                   
mw1wl_current monthly: standard data (no calibration) (lex), LCU (reported)
mw2wl_current monthly: country-specific calibration (lex), LCU (reported)
mw3wl_current monthly: country-specific calibration with imputation (lex), LCU (reported)
mw4wl_current monthly: uniform calibration (lex), LCU (reported)
mw1wl_present monthly: standard data (no calibration) (lex), LCU (present-day)
mw2wl_present monthly: country-specific calibration (lex), LCU (present-day)
mw3wl_present monthly: country-specific calibration with imputation (lex), LCU (present-day)
mw4wl_present monthly: uniform calibration (lex), LCU (present-day)                     
mw2wu_current monthly: country-specific calibration (uni), LCU (reported)
mw3wu_current monthly: country-specific calibration with imputation (uni), LCU (reported)
mw4wu_current monthly: uniform calibration (uni), LCU (reported)
mw2wu_present monthly: country-specific calibration (uni), LCU (present-day)
mw3wu_present monthly: country-specific calibration with imputation (uni), LCU (present-day)
mw4wu_present monthly: uniform calibration (uni), LCU (present-day)
mw1wl_us      monthly: standard data (no calibration) (lex), US$
mw2wl_us      monthly: country-specific calibration (lex), US$
mw3wl_us      monthly: country-specific calibration with imputation (lex), US$
mw4wl_us      monthly: uniform calibration (lex), US$                                                  
mw2wu_us      monthly: country-specific calibration (uni), US$
mw3wu_us      monthly: country-specific calibration with imputation (uni), US$
mw4wu_us      monthly: uniform calibration (uni), US$                                                   
exrt_usd      exchange rate: LCU (present-day) per US$
curr_current  LCU as reported in ILO October Inquiry                                                   
curr_present  LCU used at present                                                                      
conv_wage     conversion rate reported to present-day LCU
select        source of exchange rate                                                                   
comment       additional info if nonstandard source of exchange rate
share_indigenousl share of observations reported for indigenous workers only (lex)
share_europeanl share of observations reported for European workers only (lex)
share_indigenousu share of observations reported for indigenous workers only (uni)
share_europeanu share of observations reported for European workers only (uni)
coveragel      share of observations reported for entire country (lex)
coverageu      share of observations reported for entire country (uni) 
note_occind_matching Note on imputation of occupation and industry

Calibration Info

Wage data are reported with variable names PwTwW_C, where P indicates whether it is an hourly or monthly wage, the calibration type, W the weighting type, and C the currency type:

P∈{h,m}

Period:

h = hourly wage

m = monthly wage

T∈{1,2,3,4}

Type:

1 = standard data (no calibration)

2 = country-specific calibration

3 = country-specific calibration with imputation

4 = uniform calibration

W∈{l,u}

 Weighting:

l = lexicographic weighting

u = uniform weighting

C∈{current,present,us}

Currency:

current = in reported LCU

present = in present-day LCU

us = in US$

It is recommended to start any analysis conservatively with the non-calibrated data w1 and next to use the standardized data w2 and w3 (with increasing levels of data calibration / imputation). The standardized wage with country-specific calibration and imputation and lexicographic weighting (w3wl) is recommended for use because it provides the largest sample, it uses country-specific calibration to the extent possible and it uses lexicographic weights favoring raw data reported in standard format. The standardized data w4 do not use country-specific calibration and correspond to the standardization variant 2 in the initial release of the data for 1983-1998 (see NBER Working Paper 8058, table A.1). It is included for comparison.

QUESTIONS AND INFORMATION

If you have any questions about the OWW database please contact:
Remco Oostendorp
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
De Boelelaan 1105
1081 HV Amsterdam
email: r.h.oostendorp@vu.nl


 

 

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