Posts Tagged: Statistics

Papers / Research — No Comments
28
Oct 09

The Age Distribution of Firms in Ireland, 1960-2009

Abstract. This paper studies the age distribution of firms in Ireland from 1961 to 2009 using data on over 159,000 firms. I build a model which mixes a lognormal distribution of firm size with an exponential distribution of firm age to explain the evolution of these data. The model is fitted using maximum likelihood estimation, and tested using Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistics. The model replicates observed empirical regularities.

Keywords: Firm Age, Firm Size, Firm Growth.
JEL Codes: L20; L25; L26.

[Click here to download the paper]

UL — 1 Comment
24
Aug 08

The Dossing times accuses McWilliams of Abuse of Statistics

You and All Your Misperceptions

While I wouldn’t go as far as Simon from The Dossing Times in accusing David McWilliams of coming to “plain silly” conclusions which represent an “abuse of statistics”, I do think Simon has a much simpler (and less time and data intensive) method of discovering why the increase looked so big than mine: McWilliams just compared January 2008 with August 2008, and saw a huge increase. But there are seasonal effects here, as Simon correctly points out when you look year to year, which make this increase look more than regular.

So it’s more of a slight gaffe than a deliberate abuse of statistics, and McWilliams should know better, but he has shown us (or at least to me) data source when looking back at Irish emigration patterns. A more sophisticated analysis might be in order here. Anyone interested in helping?

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