by Gary Menger | Sep 14, 2023 | Census
Starting a few years before the 2020 census, the bureau began discussing methodologies for improving ‘disclosure avoidance’. To be honest, we were highly skeptical of how this would play out, especially since the published methodology discussions were obtuse, reading...
by Gary Menger | Sep 14, 2023 | Finance
In recent years, we have been consistently told that income inequality is on the rise and that the war on poverty declared in the 1960’s has been a failure. The Economist magazine stated bluntly that “it is a truth universally acknowledged that inequality in the rich...
by Gary Menger | May 11, 2023 | Demographics, Geography
For many years, the standard detail geography which AGS has provided to users has been the census block group. Only those who read through our methodology statements knew that you could order your In-n-Out double-double ‘animal style’, since it certainly wasn’t posted...
by Gary Menger | May 11, 2023 | Menger's Musings
In the traditional realm of parametric statistics, we were taught that the correct approach to building a statistical model of any sort was to follow the scientific method. You know, formulate a set of hypotheses about what independent factors might contribute to the...
by Gary Menger | Apr 27, 2023 | Demographics, Menger's Musings
One of the great economists of the last century, John Kenneth Galbraith, once quipped that “the only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.” The same can be said for pretty much anything that we foolishly insist on forecasting –...
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