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st: Limit on imputing miss values?


From   "Sabine N. Merz" <[email protected]>
To   <[email protected]>
Subject   st: Limit on imputing miss values?
Date   Mon, 12 May 2003 13:13:58 -0400

Dear All:

I have a question where I simply do not know if there is a "right" answer
but I would much appreciate some feedback because there might be a "golden
rule" that I simply have overlooked. (Too much time spend dealing with this
would explain it.)

*Is there a limit on how how many missing values one can or rather should
impute?

In my particular case the missing values all concern the oh, so sensitive
personal income question. I already cross checked, e.g., with labor force
status, hours worked, and such but I am still left with about 7% of my
respondents who did not answer this question. I would not feel uncomfortable
imputing 1% of missing cases but 7% seems a bit much. From the missing
values options provided it does seem that these folks simply refused to
answer the question.

I will likely simply use the stats "impute" option and see what I get and
compare these results to what would happen if I simply leave out 7% of my
sample. (Or would you suggest another method to deal with missing values?)
Still neither one is a very elegant solution.

Thank you for any advice you might have.

Best wishes,
Sabine Merz


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