Statistical agencies face a dual mandate to publish accurate statistics while protecting respondent privacy. Increasing privacy protection requires decreased accuracy. Recognizing this as a resource allocation problem, we propose an economic solution: operate where the marginal cost of...

1 Introduction -- 2 Vague Data -- 3 Fuzzy Sets of the Real Line -- 4 Operations on Fuzzy Sets -- 4.1 Set Theoretical Operations -- 4.2 On Zadeh’s Extension Principle -- 4.3 Arithmetic Operations -- 5 Representation of Vague Data in a Digital Computer -- 6 Topological Properties of Fuzzy Set...

Statistical agencies have a dual mandate to provide accurate data and protect the privacy and confidentiality of data subjects. These mandates are fundamentally at odds and therefore must be balanced: more accurate data reduces privacy, while privacy protections introduce error that reduces...