1986 Survey of Consumer Finances
Summary Results
Changes in Consumer Installment Debt: Evidence from the 1983 and 1986 Surveys of Consumer Finances
Robert B. Avery, Gregory E. Elliehausen, and Arthur B. Kennickell
Federal Reserve Bulletin, vol. 73 (October 1987), pp. 761-78.
Article (5.2 MB PDF)
Documentation
Five types of technical documentation for the 1986 SCF are available: a codebook for the edited and imputed version of the 1986 data, a codebook for the original unprocessed version of the 1986 data, the questionnaire cover sheet, the survey questionnaire, and technical working papers on the survey methodology.
Codebook for the 1986 Survey of Consumer Finances (Edited and Imputed Data)
Robert B. Avery and Arthur B. Kennickell
This codebook contains the text, variable names, and responses for the questions asked in the survey. A brief summary of technical aspects of the survey design is also provided.
Codebook (252 KB ASCII)
Last updated January 28, 1998
Codebook for the 1986 Survey of Consumer Finances (Original Unprocessed Data)
Survey Research Center, University of Michigan
This codebook lists the original survey variables and their definitions.
Codebook (9 MB PDF)
Last updated July 12, 1987
Cover Sheet for the 1986 Survey of Consumer Finances Questionnaire
The 1986 cover sheet contains forms used for the record of calls made on the household and the household listing.
Cover Sheet (152 KB PDF)
Survey Questionnaire for the 1986 Survey of Consumer Finances
The 1986 survey data were collected using a paper questionnaire.
Questionnaire (2.8 MB PDF)
Survey Data
The full final survey data are available to the public in three formats. The first set of data are made available in two types of transport file. These files may be used with the current version of SAS. (Help is available for importing these files as SAS datasets.) One version is created using PROC CPORT; this is the smaller of the two files. The second one is created using PROC COPY with the EXPORT option; this file may be particularly convenient for users who do not have access to SAS, but who do have some means of translating the dataset to another form using a software package that does not support CPORT files. Additionally, the full public data set is available as a Stata data set and in ASCII format. All of these types of files are provided in compressed form as WINZIP files. (See PKWARE website for software to uncompress WINZIP files.)
Full Public Data Set: SAS format
Edited and Imputed Version
Missing data have been singly imputed, and the codebook provides more detail on the structure of the data set.
WARNING: Some browser versions will download these files in unzipped form; the resulting PROC CPORT transport file will require 3.5 MB of disk space and the resulting PROC COPY transport file will require 12.5 MB of disk space. When uncompressed and imported as a V6.12 engine SAS data set, these files require 13 MB of disk space.
Final survey data: CPORT version (1.3 MB ZIP)
Final survey data: COPY/EXPORT version (1.6 MB ZIP)
Last updated April 24, 2003
Unprocessed Version
The original data have not been imputed in this file. The codebook provides more detail on the structure of the data set.
WARNING: Some browser versions will download these files in unzipped form; the resulting PROC CPORT transport file will require 4.6 MB of disk space and the resulting PROC COPY transport file will require 14.3 MB of disk space. When uncompressed and imported as a V6.12 engine SAS data set, these files require 15.4 MB of disk space.
Original survey data: CPORT version (673 KB ZIP)
Original survey data: COPY/EXPORT version (938 KB ZIP)
Last updated April 24, 2003
Full Public Data Set: Stata format
A second version of the full public data set is given in Stata format.
Edited and Imputed Version
WARNING: Some browser versions will download these files in unzipped form; the resulting Stata file will require 2.9 MB of disk space.
Final survey data: Stata (977 KB ZIP)
Last updated February 28, 2006
Unprocessed Version
WARNING: Some browser versions will download these files in unzipped form; the resulting Stata file will require 3.6 MB of disk space.
Original survey data: Stata (560 KB ZIP)
Last updated February 28, 2006
Full Public Data set: ASCII format
A third version of the full public data set is given in ASCII format. The variables included have exactly the same values as those in the SAS data set. The layout of the variables is given by a format file, which is provided in Excel and tab-delimited formats.
Edited and Imputed Version
WARNING: Some browser versions will download these files in unzipped form; the resulting ASCII file will require 21.8 MB of disk space.
Final survey data: ASCII (1.6 MB ZIP)
Map of variables: Excel (68 KB Excel)
Map of variables: Tab-delimited (11 KB ASCII)
Last updated April 24, 2003
Unprocessed Version
WARNING: Some browser versions will download these files in unzipped form; the resulting ASCII file will require 32.8 MB of disk space.
Original survey data: ASCII (976 KB ZIP)
Map of variables: Excel (68 KB Excel)
Map of variables: Tab-delimited (12 KB ASCII)
Last updated April 24, 2003