Data Analysis with R, Second Edition - Second Edition

Hot deck imputation

Hot deck imputation is an intuitively elegant approach that fills in the missing data with donor values from another row in the dataset. In the least sophisticated formulation, a random non-missing element from the same dataset is shared with a missing value. In more sophisticated hot deck approaches, the donor value comes from a row that is similar to the row with the missing data. The multiple imputation techniques that we will be using in a later section of this chapter borrows this idea for one of its imputation methods.

The term hot deck refers to the old practice of storing data in decks of punch cards. The deck that holds the donor value is hot because it is the one that is currently being processed.