US Census Bureau - Research Reports - ABSTRACT : Problems with Inliers

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PROBLEMS WITH INLIERS

William E. Winkler, Bureau of the Census

KEY WORDS: Edit, outlier, mixtures, administrative lists

ABSTRACT

Most edit procedures involve outlier detection and correction. They can be effective at improving the quality of certain aggregate totals obtained from a database. Inliers are fields associated with a record that are in the interior of a distribution and are in error. Inliers can arise due to systematic error and certain types of respondent and processing error. When enough records have errors due to inliers, statistical analysis of microdata can be seriously affected.

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Source: U.S. Census Bureau | Statistical Research Division | (301) 763-3215 (or chad.eric.russell@census.gov) | Last Revised: October 08, 2010