This analysis is concerned with the determinants of panel attrition from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and with its consequences for estimation of dynamic behavioral models which exploit the panel or longitudinal information-household income dynamics, marriage formation and dissolution, and adult mortality risk. We develop and estimate joint models of attrition and one or more of these substantive processes, and allow for correlation across the equations through random effects. Although we find evidence of significant selectivity in attrition behavior, the biases that are introduced by ignoring selective attrition are very mild.

Lee A. Lillard and Constantijn W. A. Panis are researchers at the RAND Corporation. This research was supported by the National Institute on Aging, grant no. PO]-AGO8291, and by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, grant no. P50-12639. The authors thank Mary Layne for careful preparation of the complex event history data. The data used in this article may be obtained through 1999 from the authors at RAND, 1700 Main Street, Santa Monica, California 90401; email to Lee_Lillard@rand.org or Stan_Panis@rand.org.

© 2002 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System

US ISSN 0022-166X

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