LIS Web Tabulator: An Online Table-Making Service provided by the Luxembourg Income Study

Introduction

LIS has undertaken a major program to improve access to the LIS data and to expand the services that we provide to our users.

As of March 2009, LIS provides secure remote-access to the LIS microdatabases (LIS and LWS) through a new submission path known as the Job submission Interface (JSI). As of August 2009, LIS also offers an online table-making service called the Web Tabulator known as the webtab. The webtab operates within the JSI.

The webtab enables registered LIS users to design and generate cross-national descriptive tables based on the underlying LIS datasets without the need for programming.

If you wish to use the webtab and are not currently registered, follow this link Data Access Registration and register.

Available Datasets and Variables

The current version of the LIS Web Tabulator includes datasets from LIS’ Wave V (approximately 2000) and Wave VI (approximately 2004). For now, it includes household-level data only. The webtab contains standardized indicators, including multiple measures of real household income, poverty, and income distribution, as well as demographic and labor market variables.

The list of available datasets can be found here.
The list of available variables can be found here.

The webtab will soon include an expanded collection of datasets and more variables. Stay tuned to our website for announcements and updates!

Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs)

All income variables have been converted from nominal local currency units to 2005 international dollars. Expressing income amounts in PPP terms is common in comparing incomes across countries and results in incomes that hold roughly equal purchasing power measured in international prices. The conversion was done by applying first a national price deflator to the nominal amounts to express them in terms of year 2005 prices. Those amounts were then converted to international dollars using purchasing power parities. The national deflators and PPPs were taken from the OECD when available, and from the World Development Indicators when not.

The PPP deflators applied to the underlying LIS data are provided here.

Using the Online Web tabulator

Once connected to the JSI (Look at Launch the Job Submission interface to learn how to do to it), using the tabulating service is very straightforward. The user carries out three main tasks:

  1. Selecting dataset(s)
  2. Designing the table
  3. Displaying the results

Selecting the dataset(s)

At the moment access is restricted to only Wave V and Wave VI Household Datasets.

  1. Click on Choose dataset
  2. Select a 'project' (LIS)
  3. Select a 'pool' of datasets (Household)
  4. Select/Deselect dataset(s) by left-clicking dataset(s) in the 'list of datasets' pane

After making this selection, the available list of variables for the selected datasets is displayed. Click on individual variables in the 'list of available variables' pane to get the corresponding value labels.

Designing the table

  1. Click on 'define row'
  2. Make your choice of row variable (left-click) in the right-pane 'variable'
  3. Click on 'define column'
  4. Make your choice of column variable (left-click) in the right-pane 'variable'
  5. Click on 'define cell'
  6. Define the contents of the cells by choosing:
    -> the type of statistics: frequencies (absolute values or percentage) or mean (all values or nonzero values)
    -> whether weights should be applied
    -> and the number of decimals

     Warnings

Displaying the results

Click on the'results' tab to see the results. Note that results based on fewer than 15 observations are not presented (signified by ***)

Citation Requirement

When presenting results generated by the webtab, please cite them properly. As specified on our in our guidelines, (Luxembourg Income Study Working Papers: Policies and Practices), results generated by the webtab should be cited as follows:

Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Web Tabulator, http://www.lisproject.org/web-tabulator.htm ({include the dates on which the table was constructed})

User Support

For questions on the Key Figures, please contact LIS User Support

When you send a query to LIS User Support, please include your name, title, affiliation, and a brief comment about your research project.

Please address all queries about the use and content of the LIS data to usersupport@lisproject.org, rather than to individual LIS staff members. That allows the LIS staff to maintain a coordinated record of all queries.