ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we extend our discussion of univariate analysis by considering how we can practically apply the logic of the normal distribution to cross-national analysis. We require students to suspend their natural inclination to work exclusively from the statistical output of their sample and to consider something more abstract: the implied population estimates that follow from these sample statistics. It is very common to rely on the univariate statistics derived from our sample and from these to describe and compare countries. However, whenever you apply statistical tools of analysis in cross-national analysis or any other field of empirical inquiry, you are in effect using your sample to infer to something more interesting: the target population.
