[lbo-talk] Better live in Sweden than in the US: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better

[Miles Jackson]

Wojtek S wrote:
> RE: A distinguished sociologist I know, who prefers to remain nameless, said
> that Wilkinson's results are very sensitive to how you specify the equations
> or set up your country universe
>
> [WS:]  I just had a quick look at the charts, but I do not think that the
> above is valid criticism.  First, the selection includes only high income
> countries, which controls for variance that is associated with income
> level.  Second, this is almost the entire *population* of high income
> countries, not a sample, therefore the concept of statistical significance
> is meaningless.  Statitical significance denotes the probability that the
> difference observed in the sample will be null if were to draw other samples
> of the same size from that population.  If that probablity is relatively
> high (typically higher than 5%) the null hypothesis cannot be rejected by
> convention.  However, if the difference is observed in th epopulation, it is
> THE difference, as repeated samples of the same size would yield the exat
> same difference.
>   
This raises an interesting statistical question: what is the population 
of interest in research like this?  All high-income nations at a single 
point in time?  All high-income nations at any point in time?  Within 
some time window?  Whether or not a statistical significance test is 
relevant depends on your assumptions about the population.

Miles