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Ir 3 m X & m? O ,7T P
and blotted out the sunlight term, and A and B are numerical con
imprecision
of reason. Let us quickly don our mathe stants to be estimated in the regression
matical raincoats and visit the scenes of analysis.
the crimes. out that BA, the estimated
It turned
At the Water Table value of the slope B, was slightly negative
A hydrologist for a large American but not significantly lower than zero. Un
state was asked whether water consump der usual standards, therefore, the hy
tion in a growing county was lowering its pothesis that the water table was stable
water table, in which case its system of over time was in harmony with the em
wells might soon be useless. He had pirical evidence. Of course, the data were
measurements on the height of the water also consistent with a modest
steady but
table (in number of feet above sea level) drop over to
time. But
public officials bat
at the end of each recent year. To deter tered by problems above the ground, the
mine the table was a sufficient
whether dropping analysis might have seemed
Copyright ? 1990,The Institute of Management Sciences STATISTICS
0091-2102/90/2002/0042$01.25
basis for not worrying about problems The upshot is that BA estimated under
below. (1) might reveal not simply the long-term
When the hydrologist presented his trend in H but rather the sum of that
work at a meeting of state planners, he trend and the short-term effects of
was asked the amount of recent pre variations over time in recent rainfall.
why
cipitation was
not an explanatory variable To gauge the importance of this last
in the regression. He answered that he possibility, one can replace (1) with the
was trends more general
only in long-term
interested model:
and not in the transient effects of year-to H = A + Bt + CR + e (2)
year fluctuations in rainfall. To the extent where R = rainfall over
the last year, and
that such fluctuations affected H, he sug A, B, H, t, and e are defined as in (1).
an
gested, they were adequately represented When analyst calibrated(2) with the
in the model by the zero-mean noise hydrologist's data, he found that CA was
term, e.
positive and highly significant, while the
This for omitting rainfall new BA was both and far
explanation significant
from the model was not preposterous. more negative than its counterpart in (1).
But that is not to say that it was viable. And under the criterion of mean-squared
There is reason to fear that his omission error, the new model was far more com
distorted the meaning of the parameter patible with the data than was its prede
BA and thus that his conclusions about cessor. When H was
subsequently
the water
table...er...might
not hold allowed to depend not just on R but on
water. rainfall in the last few years, BA became
Even if we grant that, between Ice even more
negative and significant. In
given spot between annual rainfall and a water table with a strong
portrayed
time, there can still be correlation be underlying propensity to fall.
tween time and rainfall over a given short A post-mortem revealed that, because
period. Perhaps the rainier years will fall rain had been unusually abundant near
by chance towards the start of the period, the end of the hydrologist's study period,
or towards the end. Should that happen, the water table had not dropped very
a depiction of the observed much over the full period. It was that cir
straight-line
rainfall/time relation would have a posi cumstance that had led to the only
tive (or negative) slope rather than the slightly negative BA in (1). But the very
slope of zero that would prevail in the fact that the water table failed to rise dur
longer
run.
ing several wet years was indirect evi
Suppose that the water table H at the dence of a strong downward trend, a
end of a year varies positively with the trend that became quite visible once H
amount of rain R that fell during that was for the effects of recent
adjusted
year. Then if R is correlated with time rainfall.
over some similarly be
period, H would The moral of this drenching is that,
correlated, all other factors being equal. even if a variable should have no long
March-April 1990 43
lysts should beware of the assumption day span will occur during the same
that either the noise-level e or the con calendar day.
stant term A satisfactorily incorporates The phrase "statistical of
probability
that variable into a regression model. A rain" raises an interesting question about
more prudent course might be to include how the forecast was developed. Was it
that variable directly in the analysis and based on historical data for Denver for
trust that, if it indeed has no systematic the period 4/30 to 5/5, or was it tied to
effect within the data set at hand, near the specific conditions on
prevailing
zero estimates of the appropriate 4/29/89 when the forecast was made? In
coefficients will testify to that fact. more formal terms, was the "statistical"
provided, which means that the forecast period is 1.45? the two inter
Obviously,
could serve as the embryo of an exciting pretations are not equivalent: if the cumu
INTERFACES20:2 44
Perhaps the policy's leading scientific urged instead that the bombers be
agency had estimated the destructiveness fully to destroy that city's housing under
of these raids by calculating the ratio of Lord Cherwell's linear model. Then, as
the amount of housing destroyed to the suming bombardment at some fixed rate
of tons of bombs dropped. Mak over time, / would a differ
number roughly follow
ing linear extrapolations based on this ential equation of the form:
=
"houses per ton" statistic, he projected dfldt (l-/)/A (2)
that the tonnage of bombs available Under (2), the time dt required to raise
through mid-1943 to the Royal Air Force the fraction of houses destroyed from / to
would suffice to "dehouse" the "great / + dfwould follow:
majority" of inhabitants of the 58 largest dt = Adf/(l-f)
March-April 1990 45
while the time t(F) needed to destroy frac which so cast its vote for
strongly
tion / of the housing would follow: concavity.
ing damage in Dresden from only one ceeds u(y), the mean of y. Is the 95th per
raid.) Hence the marginal effectiveness of centile of x greater than the 95th
more sometimes grows faster percentile of y?
bombing
than rather than slower. It is Not necessarily. A distribution's 95th
linearly
therefore possible that Lord Cherwell's on its variance as well
percentile depends
model ? which was neutral between con as its mean. If s(x) and s(y) are, respec
?
cavity
and
convexity
was more accu
tively, the standard deviations of x and y,
rate in the aggregate than Lord Blackett's, then the real issue is whether
INTERFACES20:2 46
u(x) + l.(As(x) exceeds u(y) + 1.64s(y). We criteria is Atlanta America's crime capitol:
can that, if s(y) it has a lower per capita murder rate than
readily compute
s(x)>1.56(u(x)-u(y)), then y will have the Detroit or and a substantially
Washington
larger 95th percentile. These formulas re lower robbery rate than New York. Thus,
flect the intuitively clear notion that a dis not only does (3) not follow from (1) and
tribution with around a (2), but (1) and (2) do not themselves fol
large dispersion
low mean can have a higher right tail low clearly from the data they purport to
than another distribution with small summarize.
largest of 100 samples can exceed a distri tistical storms that always swirl around
bution's mean by far more than does the our own work,
waiting to blow us away if
analogy why (1) and (2) do not imply (3). "let the sun shine in!" That sounds like a
Some nation that has a lower average marvelous for us in the new decade
goal
crime rate than the US but greater hetero and the subsequent millennium.
March-April 1990 47