Friday, July 16, 2010

Fraser Institute Research And The Long Form: How Many Degrees Of Separation?

So the Fraser Institute has come out in favour of Tony Clement's changes to the census long-form.

Let's play a little game. How long will it take us to find a Fraser Institute study that would be negatively impacted if the long-form data turned to crap?

Oh my! 37 seconds! This one, for example: Measuring Labour Markets in Canada and the United States: 2009 Edition. It leans on:

Statistics Canada (2009e). Labour Force Survey, program A040903. Special Request from Statistics Canada.

...which, because it uses a relatively small sample, must re-based according to the larger sample in the census long-form every ten years.

And here's a nice summary of Fraser Institute research topics. Pick a few of their studies, and play the game!

Update: Calgary Grit is playing the game!

2 comments:

Shiner said...

Like Gordon says on twitter, no excuse for anyone to take FI seriously as policy analysts anymore.

Holly Stick said...

Well it's not like any of them have any academic credibility.