In econometrics and statistics, a top-coded dataset is one for which the upper bound is not known. This is often done to preserve the anonymity of people participating in the survey (for example, if a survey included a person with wealth of $51 billion, it would not be anonymous because people would know it is Bill Gates).
Contents |
id | age | income | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 26 | 24778 | exact value |
2 | 32 | 26750 | exact value |
3 | 45 | 26780 | exact value |
4 | 32 | 30000+ | top coded |
5 | 45 | 30000+ | top coded |
Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson argue that the practice of top-coding, or capping the reported maximum value on tax returns ostensibly to protect the earner's anonymity, complicates the analysis of the distribution of wealth in the United States.[1]