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I have a small population and it is possible to estimate Population regression function from the data. The size of the population is very small. It is only eight. I think since the regression relates to poulation, there is no need to conduct any testing. Am I correct?

gung - Reinstate Monica
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Dr Ashis Taru Deb
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    What sort of tests are you doing? Is the population fixed over time (e.g. are there births and deaths)? – probabilityislogic Jan 27 '13 at 01:22
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    Even if you have the whole population, we typically think of those as a sample of a larger *hypothetical* population. Eg, imagine studying a rare disease where you have access to every person alive w/ the disease. It's still possible that some different people will have the disease in the future. – gung - Reinstate Monica Jan 27 '13 at 01:26
  • Q&A with similar issues at http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/2628/statistical-inference-when-the-sample-is-the-population. Generally it actually fits in well with a lot of questions of interest to approach the actual observation as a sample generated by an infinite data generating process or infinite population. But it depends what you are looking for. – Peter Ellis Jan 27 '13 at 06:47

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