Abstract
Stuart Scott and Daniel J. Rope (1993)
"Distributions and Transformations for Family
Expenditures," Proceedings of the Section on Social
Statistics, American Statistical Association, 741-746.
Family expenditure distributions from the U.S. Consumer
Expenditure Survey, at both detailed and aggregate levels of
spending categories, are highly skewed. Lognormal and
gamma-family distributions, including the generalized gamma
distribution, are fitted and compared for selected
expenditure items. In addition, Box-Cox transformations to
achieve approximate normality are carried out. To select the
transformation, direct methods and methods based on the
models (cf. Hernandez and Johnson, 1980) are applied. These
expenditure data are utilized in numerous analytic studies.
Implications for data users are discussed.
Last Modified Date: July 19, 2008
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