Re: st: Binomial confidence intervals

[Richard Williams <Richard.A.Williams.5@nd.edu>]

At 04:55 PM 9/8/2004 +0100, Ron�n Conroy wrote:
> Reading the paper and examining their graphs, it's really much of a 
> muchness between Wilson and Jeffreys, which seem to suffer less from the 
> lucky/unlucky p and N combinations than the Agresti. Agresti certainly 
> gets third place, but did anyone reading the paper spot a compelling 
> advantage of Wilson over Jeffreys, or the other way around? I didn't.
>
> I have been using the Wilson interval since Nick wrote -ciw-, simply 
> because I found -ciwi- an easy-to-remember command name.
I have to admit that, while I am a stickler about a lot of things, this is 
one of those issues where I am willing to have somebody smart tell me what 
to do and I will mindlessly obey (unless there is some compelling reason to 
do otherwise).  It is something I will spend a few minutes on in 
class.  But it does sound like Wilson is about as good as anything, works 
with large and small samples, plus Wilson got there first. Perhaps this is 
a disciplinary thing, but just off the top of my head I don't recall a lot 
of instances in Sociology where the binomial confidence interval was a 
source of great controversy.  But maybe I just haven't paid enough attention.


-------------------------------------------
Richard Williams, Notre Dame Dept of Sociology
OFFICE: (574)631-6668, (574)631-6463
FAX:    (574)288-4373
HOME:   (574)289-5227
EMAIL:  Richard.A.Williams.5@ND.Edu
WWW (personal):    http://www.nd.edu/~rwilliam
WWW (department):    http://www.nd.edu/~soc


*
*   For searches and help try:
*   http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
*   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/