Updates I’ve made small updates to two of my R packages on CRAN: ggseas (seasonal adjustment on the fly for ggplot2 graphics) and Tcomp (tourism forecasting competition data). Neither of the packages changes in a noticeable way for most users. The ggseas update is to get it ready for ... [Read more...]

Life expectancy and death rates A chance comment on Twitter about historical increases in life expectancy (in the USA) with fairly constant death rates got me wondering about the exact calculations of these things so I did some Googling. Warning on what follows - I am strictly an amateur in ... [Read more...]

At a glance: I had a brief look around New Zealand government agency websites and found 15 high quality web apps written in the Shiny platform. 13 May 2018 Here’s fifteen nice web applications built with RStudio’s Shiny framework. All of these are owned and maintained by New Zealand government departments ... [Read more...]

Surveys everywhere! Surveys are everywhere, and thinking about them in different ways has dominated my work so far this year. What’s right and wrong with them, how to improve them, do we need them, can we replace this one or that one with administrative data, why do the media (... [Read more...]

Surveys everywhere! Surveys are everywhere, and thinking about them in different ways has dominated my work so far this year. What’s right and wrong with them, how to improve them, do we need them, can we replace this one or that one with administrative data, why do the media (... [Read more...]

A conundrum for Microsoft Power BI I’ve been familiarising myself with Microsoft Power BI, which features prominently in any current discussion on data analysis and dissemination tools for organisations. It’s a good tool with some nice features. I won’t try to do a full review here, but ... [Read more...]

A conundrum for Microsoft Power BI I’ve been familiarising myself with Microsoft Power BI, which features prominently in any current discussion on data analysis and dissemination tools for organisations. It’s a good tool with some nice features. I won’t try to do a full review here, but ... [Read more...]

Caution - this blog post discusses homicide and suicide statistics and could be upsetting. If you feel disturbed or unhappy then here is a list of ways to get some emergency counselling help around the world. A grim research question In my last post... [Read more...]

Caution - this blog post discusses homicide and suicide statistics and could be upsetting. If you feel disturbed or unhappy then here is a list of ways to get some emergency counselling help around the world. A grim research question In my last post I looked at fitting a Poisson ... [Read more...]

Data that’s been only partially observed I’ve been updating my skills in fitting models to truncated data and was pleased to find that, like so much else in statistics, it’s easier than it used to be. First, some definitions: censored data ... [Read more...]

Data that’s been only partially observed I’ve been updating my skills in fitting models to truncated data and was pleased to find that, like so much else in statistics, it’s easier than it used to be. First, some definitions: censored data is where some observations are cut ... [Read more...]

Branko Milanovic asked on Twitter: Idea for a paper: “Homogamy” on Twitter. Do people with more followers follow people with more followers? I don’t have time to write a paper but I was sufficiently interested to want to blog about it. Th... [Read more...]

Branko Milanovic asked on Twitter: Idea for a paper: “Homogamy” on Twitter. Do people with more followers follow people with more followers? I don’t have time to write a paper but I was sufficiently interested to want to blog about it. The consensus in the replies was “of course ... [Read more...]

I last blogged about books in September 2016 and it’s still in my 10 most popular posts. I thought I’d update it with some of the data-relevant books I read in 2017. Mostly these are books that were published before 2017 - it’s just that it was last year that I ... [Read more...]

I last blogged about books in September 2016 and it’s still in my 10 most popular posts. I thought I’d update it with some of the data-relevant books I read in 2017. Mostly these are books that were published before 2017 - it’s just that it was last year that I ... [Read more...]

Official statistical classifications can be big, complex things. For example, the complete version of the “International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities, Rev.4” comes as either a 300 page PDF or a 1.3GB Microsoft Acce... [Read more...]

Official statistical classifications can be big, complex things. For example, the complete version of the “International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities, Rev.4” comes as either a 300 page PDF or a 1.3GB Microsoft Access database. Classifications typically have a hierarchy of four or more levels and hundreds or thousands ... [Read more...]

A puzzle In my last blog post, I gave a hypothetical test exercise for candidates in a recruitment process, involving the International Visitor Survey (IVS) from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). I once managed the team resp... [Read more...]

A puzzle In my last blog post, I gave a hypothetical test exercise for candidates in a recruitment process, involving the International Visitor Survey (IVS) from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). I once managed the team responsible for that survey and other sector data, so I was ... [Read more...]

A management challenge Between 2011 and 2017 I selected somewhere between 20 and 30 staff and contractors, for New Zealand public sector roles with titles like Analyst, Senior Analyst and Principal Analyst. Alternative names for these roles could h... [Read more...]