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AHS: New Documentation Files

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AHS
Three documentation files have been added to the American Housing
Survey (AHS) pages on HUD USER:  Two topcode spreadsheets and the
ASCII data dictionary.

TOPCODE FILES

In order to protect the identities of survey respondents, the
Census Bureau replaces unusually large (and, in a few
circumstances, unusually small) values with "topcodes" (for small
values, "bottomcodes").  You can download a document describing
the top- and bottomcoding procedures from
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/ahs.html#supplements .

For each survey dataset, we supply a spreadsheet that shows the
maximum, minimum, second-largest, and second-smallest values for
all variables subject to topcoding or bottomcoding.  The
spreadsheet also shows the frequency of cases that have the
maximum and minimum values for each variable.  You can download
the topcode spreadsheet for the 2007 national survey from:

https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/ahs.html

The topcode spreadsheet for the 2007 metropolitan survey (which
has a worksheet for each metropolitan area) is available at:

https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/ahs.html

ASCII DATA DICTIONARY

The main resource for understanding the AHS datasets is the
codebook, which is available for download as a PDF file.
However, some users prefer to have the basic coding information
for the variables in a plain ASCII file.  We have updated this
file, and you can download it from:

https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/ahs.html#codebooks

Note that this data dictionary applies to both the SAS and ASCII
versions of the dataset.  The phrase "ASCII data dictionary"
refers to the format of the dictionary itself, not the dataset.
The data dictionary contains only the entries for the individual
variables.  It does not contain the front matter, appendices, and
chapter introductions that are in the PDF codebook.

These documents were produced by ICF Consulting, a subcontractor
for Econometrica, Inc., under contract with HUD.

Dav Vandenbroucke
Senior Economist
U.S. Dept. HUD
david.a.vandenbroucke@hud.gov
202-402-5890

I disclaim any disclaimers.