TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY SYSTEM

TBD CONSUMER EXPENDITURE SURVEYS:

NEW USER PERSPECTIVES

Presenter: Van Dinh 

Ph. D. Student

School of Financial Planning

Texas Tech University

July 20th, 2023
AGENDA

▪ Motivation to Use CE Dataset

▪ New User Experience

▪ Conclusion
MOTIVATION TO USE CE DATASET 

▪ Behavioral Finance – Dr. James Russell 

✓ recognizes that human beings are not always rational when making financial 

decisions, prone to biases and systematic errors

✓ seeks to provide insights into why people make certain financial choices

✓ charitable giving: culture and upbringings – context of the contribution

▪ Research Question: How cultural dimensions can impact the 

contribution to charity? 
MOTIVATION TO USE CE DATASET 

▪ Workshop registration in May 

✓ Information about individual cash contributions to different charitable 

organization in dataset – Hardly found in any other datasets.

✓ Downloaded data files and overwhelmed with instructions

▪ Emailed and met with an expert – Dr. Paulin Geoffrey 

✓ Started to read and discover the dataset

✓ Got some critical information about the dataset from the expert

✓ Participated in July workshop
NEW USER EXPERIENCE

▪ Getting the Data Files and Documents 
NEW USER EXPERIENCE

▪ Personal Interested Variables

• Cash contributions to religious, educational, charitable, or political 

organizations.

• Races and Ethnicity – divided into country of origin – merged with other dataset 

about the Culture Dimensions (Hofstede, World Preference Survey)

• Other demographic variables: age, family size, education ... 

▪ Important Files

• CE PUMD Getting 

Started Guide (PDF)

• Dictionary for Interview 

and Diary Survey (XLSX)

• Questionnaires

• Data Files in zip CVS or 

STATA
NEW USER EXPERIENCE

❑Different data files: Interview (monthly, quarterly, annually) and Dairy 

(weekly, quarterly) Surveys

❑Different data files for CU (consumer unit) level data and for member 

level data in Interview Survey → using dictionary to find the codes

➢ FMLI - CU Level data: Summary of expenditure, income, assets, liabilities 

- Total cash contribution of the whole quarter – CU level 

- Race of 2 main members in the CU - E.g. Reference person – Spouse (Mexican –

Mexican)

➢ MTBI – Monthly Expenditure – CU level 

- Cash Contribution for each purposes (cash to charity organization, churches, to 

educational organization...) at monthly amount → Calculated yearly

➢ MEMI – Member level data – Characteristics, member income ...

- Race, demographics of members in CU → merged with another dataset

All the data files are connected by Member ID number 
CONCLUSION

❑Advantages of CE data: rich source of information about consumer 

finance, actual expenses, continuous variables, yearly data

❑Disadvantages of CE data: different files per year, survey time vs. calendar 

year, consumer unit vs. member data, questionnaire revisions, many 

coding and variables. 

❑Suggested solutions for new users: 

✓ Understand the main purposes of each surveys and data files.

✓ Extract some basic data first after reading the getting started guide.

✓ Workshops and experts are important to understand and dive into the dataset.
Thank you for your attention!

Q&A

van.dinh@ttu.edu