Correlations with ordinal data
Abstract
[Introduction] In most econometric analyses the data are uniquely defined except for a choice of units (e.g., physical quantities or value flows) and/or a location parameter (e.g., time). In some cases the cardinality of the data is less clear. For instance, building inspectors may rate various aspects of dwellings and neighborhoods on a one to five scale, the resulting indices being used in regressions explaining housing prices [Kain and Quigley (1970), King and Mieszkowski (1973)]. Battalio et al. (1973) recently pointed out that the sign of the correlation coefficient may not be invariant with respect to order preserving transformations of the ordinal variable and presented a numerical example. The exact conditions under which the sign of the sample correlation between a cardinal variable and an ordinal variable is 'identified' are given in section 2. The case of two ordinal variables is dealt with in section 3.
Copyright and License
© 1974 Academic Press, Ltd.
Additional Information
Originally issued as Caltech Social Science Working Paper 27, entitled "On the Use of Ordinal Data in Regression Analysis."
Additional details
- Alternative title (English)
- On the Use of Ordinal Data in Regression Analysis
- Eprint ID
- 83733
- DOI
- 10.1016/0304-4076(74)90003-7
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20171207-134407336
- Submitted
-
1973-11Received
- Accepted
-
1974-03Revised paper
- Available
-
2002-02-28Available online
- Caltech groups
- Social Science Working Papers
- Other Numbering System Name
- Social Science Working Paper
- Other Numbering System Identifier
- 27
- Publication Status
- Published