Applied Statistics - Skyler Cranmer 

 This week, the Applied Statistics Workshop will present a talk by Skyler Cranmer, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of California - Davis and a visiting scholar at IQSS.  He earned a BA in Criminal Justice and an MA in International Relations before starting the program at Davis.  His research interests in political methodology include statistical computing, missing data problems, and formal theory. 

 Skyler will present a talk entitled "Hot Deck Imputation for Discrete Data."  The paper is available from the  course website .  The presentation will be at noon on Wednesday, April 18 in Room N354, CGIS North, 1737 Cambridge St. As always, lunch will be provided. An abstract follows on the jump: 


 Hot Deck Imputation for Discrete Data 
Skyler J. Cranmer 

 Abstract 

 In this paper, I develop a technique for imputing missing observations in discrete data. The technique used is a variant of hot deck imputation called fractional hot deck imputation. Because the imputed value is a draw from the conditional distribution of the variable with the missing observation, the discrete nature of the variable is maintained as its missing values are imputed. I introduce a discrete weighting system to the fractional hot deck imputation method. I weight imputed values by the fraction of the original weight of the missing element assigned to the value of the donor observation based on its degree of affinity with the incomplete observation and am thus able to make confidence statements about imputed results; hot decking in the past has been limited by the inability to make such confidence statements.