Imputation of the 1989 Survey of Consumer Finances: Stochastic Relaxation and Multiple Imputation

Opinions expressed in this paper are the responsibility of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Board of Governors or the Federal Reserve System. the advice and support of Fritz Scheuren, comments by Roderick Little and Donald Rubin on an earlier description of the imputation model presented here, the patience and creativity of Louise Woodburn in serving as sounding board for many of the ideas, Gerhard Fries for valuable help in debugging the software, and Robert Denk for his careful work in managing the SCF database. Finally, thanks are due also to Robert Avery, the author's predecessor as SCF project director, who nourished an environment where data collection and imputation are taken seriously.