Inferences for Selected Location Quotients with Applications to Health Outcomes

Gemechis D. Djira, Frank Schaarschmidt and Bichaka Fayissa

No 200809, Working Papers from Middle Tennessee State University, Department of Economics and Finance

Abstract: Location quotient (LQ) is an index frequently used in geography and economics to measure the relative concentration of activities. This quotient is calculated in a variety of ways depending on which group to use as a reference. Here, we focus on simultaneous inference for the ratios of the individual proportions to the overall proportion based on binomial data. Apparently, this is a multiple comparison problem and multiplicity adjusted location quotients have not been addressed up to now. In fact, there is a negative correlation between the comparisons. The quotients can be simultaneously tested against unity and simultaneous confidence intervals can be constructed for the LQs based on existing probability inequalities and by directly using the asymptotic joint distribution of the associated z-statistics. The proposed inferences are appropriate for analysis based on sample surveys. A real data set is used to demonstrate the application of multiplicity adjusted LQs. A simulation study is also carried out to assess the performance of the proposed methods in terms of achieving a nominal coverage probability. It is observed that the coverage of the simple Bonferroni adjusted Fieller intervals for LQs is just as good as the coverage of the method which directly takes the correlations into account.

Keywords: Location quotients; Fieller's theorem; Multiple comparison. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C12 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ecm, nep-hea and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://capone.mtsu.edu/berc/working/LQ9-4-08_WP.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mts:wpaper:200809

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Middle Tennessee State University, Department of Economics and Finance Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Benjamin Jansen (benjamin.jansen@mtsu.edu).