Data Analytic Impact of SDC Techniques on Microdata

The aim of this chapter is to discuss the impact of SDC techniques on the data analytic potential of microdata. There is no single correct way to define “analytic potential” since different users might analyze a given set of microdata in different unforeseen ways. We shall begin by assuming that the purpose of the analysis is to estimate a specified set of population parameters. These might be descriptive parameters, such as means or proportions or they may be analytic parameters, such as the coefficients of a regression model. We consider the impact of SDC techniques on the estimation of these parameters and, specifically, the impact of the SDC techniques discussed in Chapter 1.