IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/bjposi/v43y2013i02p425-449_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

We Have to Be Discrete About This: A Non-Parametric Imputation Technique for Missing Categorical Data

Author

Listed:
  • Cranmer, Skyler J.
  • Gill, Jeff

Abstract

Missing values are a frequent problem in empirical political science research. Surprisingly, the match between the measurement of the missing values and the correcting algorithms applied is seldom studied. While multiple imputation is a vast improvement over the deletion of cases with missing values, it is often unsuitable for imputing highly non-granular discrete data. We develop a simple technique for imputing missing values in such situations, which is a variant of hot deck imputation, drawing from the conditional distribution of the variable with missing values to preserve the discrete measure of the variable. This method is tested against existing techniques using Monte Carlo analysis and then applied to real data on democratization and modernization theory. Software for our imputation technique is provided in a free, easy-to-use package for the R statistical environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Cranmer, Skyler J. & Gill, Jeff, 2013. "We Have to Be Discrete About This: A Non-Parametric Imputation Technique for Missing Categorical Data," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(2), pages 425-449, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:bjposi:v:43:y:2013:i:02:p:425-449_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0007123412000312/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. R. Michael Alvarez & Jian Cao & Yimeng Li, 2021. "Voting Experiences, Perceptions of Fraud, and Voter Confidence," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1225-1238, July.
    2. Bjørn Høyland & Vibeke Wøien Hansen, 2014. "Issue-specific policy-positions and voting in the Council," European Union Politics, , vol. 15(1), pages 59-81, March.
    3. Eriko Miyama & Shunsuke Managi, 2014. "Global environmental emissions estimate: application of multiple imputation," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 16(2), pages 115-135, April.
    4. Bailey, Michael & Hopkins, Daniel J. & Rogers, Todd, 2013. "Unresponsive and Unpersuaded: The Unintended Consequences of Voter Persuasion Efforts," Working Paper Series rwp13-034, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:bjposi:v:43:y:2013:i:02:p:425-449_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jps .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.