Howes, Stephen (1993) Why not to aggregate up: the influence of aggregation on the ordering of distributions. DARP (2). Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, London, UK.
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Researchers in many fields of economics often compare distributions using some criterion or another of inequality, poverty or welfare. It is standard practice to base such comparative analysis on aggregated data. But will the results obtained be dependent on the degree of aggregation of the data? This paper argues, on the basis of a simulation study, that they will be since the probability of obtaining a ranking can increase rapidly with the degree of aggregation. Aggregation exaggerates the differences between similar distributions and overlooks crossings at the lower tail. A change in research strategy where possible and statistical inference used in its place.
| Item Type: | Monograph (Discussion Paper) |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk |
| Additional Information: | © 1993 Stephen Howes |
| Divisions: | STICERD |
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory |
| Date Deposited: | 07 Jul 2008 16:22 |
| Last Modified: | 11 Dec 2024 18:20 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/6637 |
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