--%>
Assignment Help - homework help

What is Imperfect data

Imperfect data: Most studies start with imperfect data. Few datasets involve the entire population of interest.

Typically, the data has been gathered by others for specific purposes, and as such may have built in biases or representational problems. As a consumer of analytical research, you should be looking for whether the authors properly describe the source of their data and any connected limitations imposed by that source. Surveys of populations will frequently report their confidence intervals. At either the national level or at the economy wide or sectoral level of analysis, data often has relatively small confidence intervals across space and over time.

As the data is subdivided to represent subsets of the source population (e.g., the Labour Force Survey unemployment rate in manufacturing in Saskatchewan vs. the unemployment rate for Canada as a whole), the confidence intervals will widen significantly. The level of confidence may widen to the point where differences of ± 10% to 20% may not be statistically significant. Authors should carefully consider the provenance and reliability of their data.

A second problem is that quite often authors report that they have “cleaned” a dataset – e.g., dropped outliers in panel data or lopped off tips or tails of longitudinal data. Any time you hear this, your antennae should go up. Cleaning data should be done very carefully and any changes in data should be fully discussed and analyzed, rather than simply accepted.

   Related Questions in Microeconomics

  • Q : Depreciation expense The Realto Theatre

    The Realto Theatre purchased a new projector costing $37,000 on January 1, 2010. Since of changing technologies, the projector is predictable to last five years after which it will be obsolete and contain a salvage value of $1,000 as a collectors item. Compute the

  • Q : What will be included in illustrations

    Illustrations of price floors comprised: (1) agricultural subsidies upon, for example: corn. (2) usury laws, that are limits on the interest rates on loans. (3) utility rate structures upon natural gas or electricity. (4) rent controls in London, San

    		•
  • Q : Law of demand is price in the law of

    is price in the law of demand an absolute or relative price

    		•
  • Q : Example of acquisitions of merger The

    The Overpriced Petroleum Extraction Company (or OPEC) has just declared its acquisition of some small firms with facilities which will permit OPEC to process oil via the whole refining procedure, from oil field recovery via transporting and then trading the refined pe

    		•
  • Q : High prices elasticities of demand

    Taxing private auto travel as well as subsidizing mass transit will most effectively limit auto travel and raise the use of mass transit when the price elasticities of demand for auto travel: (1) and mass transit are low, and the cross-elasticity of d

    		•
  • Q : Variable costs in short run A monopoly

    A monopoly tends to shut down within the short-run when: (i) price is less than the minimum of average total costs [ATC]. (ii) price cannot cover all overhead costs. (iii) variable costs are not covered. (iv) total costs exceed total revenues. (v) the

    		•
  • Q : Government rent control imposing When

    When government rent controls are imposed at R0 when demand equals D0 and then demand changes to D1, there is the: (w) quality of housing is likely to enhance. (x) housing market will be plagued through shortages. (y) price ceili

    		•
  • Q : Define Producers equilibrium Producers

    Producers equilibrium signifies the stage beneath which with the help of given factors of production producer attain the level of production of which he is acquiring maximum gain.

    		•
  • Q : Define bank rate Bank rate : This is

    Bank rate: This is the rate of interest at which central bank provides loan and advance to commercial banks.

    		•
  • Q : Marginal tax rate on earn income The

    The marginal tax rate onto earned income in the negative income tax system demonstrated in this figure is: (1) 15 percent. (2) 20 percent. (3) 25 percent. (4) 33.3 percent. (5) 50 percent.