Be that as it may, the point at issue was the Amazon spending of the average US household. I’m not sure what point relevant to the discussion you’re trying to make, other than reflexively arguing with any use of means in economic analysis. OK, sure, tell Matt Stoller.
I guess it's just always important/helpful to keep in mind that the average is almost certainly going to be misleading when the distribution is extremely skewed, as is the case for household income. It's usually a mistake to talk about averages in these cases, when the median is almost always going to be more meaningful.
Sure, but I’m certain US household income is not normally distributed, and I’d bet all the money in my pockets that US household Amazon spend isn’t normally distributed, either.
The mean is almost always a meaningless statistics. It only takes a few people to buy stuff like this to skew it.
http://www.sellersprite.com/en/blog/most-expensive-thing-on-...
Be that as it may, the point at issue was the Amazon spending of the average US household. I’m not sure what point relevant to the discussion you’re trying to make, other than reflexively arguing with any use of means in economic analysis. OK, sure, tell Matt Stoller.
I guess it's just always important/helpful to keep in mind that the average is almost certainly going to be misleading when the distribution is extremely skewed, as is the case for household income. It's usually a mistake to talk about averages in these cases, when the median is almost always going to be more meaningful.
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The average Amazon spending of a US household, not the Amazon spending of the average US household. That second one gets weird.
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It actually is for the normal distribution.
Household income is not normally distributed. In fact nothing with a hard zero can be normally distributed.
Sure, but I’m certain US household income is not normally distributed, and I’d bet all the money in my pockets that US household Amazon spend isn’t normally distributed, either.