DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03618
title: Survey of Consumer Finances, 1959
title: Archival Version

description: This data collection is one in a series of financial
 surveys of consumers conducted annually since 1946. In a nationally
 representative sample, the head of each spending unit (usually the
 husband, the main earner, or the owner of the home) was interviewed.
 The basic unit of reference in the study was the spending unit, but
 some family data are also available. The questions in the 1959 survey
 covered the respondent's attitudes toward national economic conditions
 and price activity, as well as the respondent's own financial situation.
 Other questions examined the spending unit head's occupation, and the
 nature and amount of the spending unit's income, debts, liquid assets,
 changes in liquid assets, savings, investment preferences, and actual
 and expected purchases of cars and other major durables. In addition,
 the survey explored in detail the subject of housing, e.g., previous
 and present home ownership, value of respondent's dwelling, and
 mortgage information. Respondents also were asked for the details of
 the head's unemployment experience and for any changes in the
 composition of the spending unit. Personal data include number of
 people in the spending unit, age, sex, and education of the head, and
the race and sex of the respondent.
description: The respondents interviewed were drawn from a national
 sample of dwelling units. The dwelling units falling in the sample
 were chosen by area probability sampling to represent the United
States population.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: Survey of Consumer Finances, 1959
description: The population of the United States.
description: (1) Unlike Survey of Consumer Finances studies in
 prior years, differential sampling rates have not been applied to
 different economic groups. (2) Most of the data in the study pertain
 to a spending unit. For some variables, information from related
 spending units was combined to provide data on a family basis. The
 user should refer to the instructions and worksheets included with the
 codebook to ascertain the procedures followed in these computations.
 (3) The majority of the variables in the study represent information
 obtained through direct questioning of the respondent. Some variables,
 however, are the result of computations done for each interview, e.g.,
 amount saved, total indebtedness, estimated income taxes, and the
 relation of these amounts to income. (4) In some instances, where
 important information was missing, assigned values were given. The
 assigned values were based on other known characteristics of the
 spending unit and occur only in a small proportion of the cases. Those
 variables containing assigned information are preceded by a lead
 variable, indicating for each case whether the value in the following
 variable is assigned or not. (5) The codebook is provided by ICPSR as
 a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was
 developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF
 reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how
 to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web
site.