Multi-Register Administrative Data Linkage for Counterfactual Estimation

In Simple Words

Think of building a comprehensive financial history by merging bank transaction logs, tax returns, and employer payroll records into a single master timeline for every citizen. Instead of asking people to remember what they earned ten years ago, researchers connect official government record books to track exact monthly employment histories automatically.

Research question

Predicting individual potential outcomes across multiple public policy interventions requires granular, long-term employment and earnings histories without survey attrition or reporting errors. Survey data lacks sufficient sample sizes and historical depth to estimate treatment effect heterogeneity across diverse demographic subgroups.

Participants

Population database of N = 460,442 Swiss jobseekers aged 25 to 55 registered between January 2001 and December 2003.

Study Design

Deterministic linkage of public unemployment insurance records (AVAM/ASAL) from 1998–2004 with central social security pension records (AHV) covering 11 years (1990–2002) of monthly earnings and employment status.

Results

Linked multi-register database captured 11-year pre-unemployment labor histories and 12-to-24 month post-unemployment follow-up outcomes with zero panel attrition across the entire national population sample.

Takeaway

Link national unemployment benefit administration registers with social security pension records to build longitudinal monthly panel datasets for non-parametric counterfactual prediction.

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Plain-English glossary

Original explanations, informed by the references below. Examples are illustrations, not data from the studies above. The research text stays unchanged.

Longitudinal study

A study that checks the same group of people at different times. This lets researchers examine how things change over time.

ExampleResearchers ask the same workers about their wellbeing at the start, after three months and after six months.

NICE · Longitudinal study ↗Read more about longitudinal study →

Follow-up

Collecting more information about participants later in a study to see what has happened to them. The term can also mean the length of time researchers keep track of them.

ExampleResearchers interview the same workers three months after a programme ends. That later interview is a follow-up.

GET-IT glossary · Follow-up ↗Read more about follow-up →

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