NOMINAL DATA

* classification data, e.g. m/f

* no ordering, e.g. it makes no sense to state that M > F
* arbitrary labels, e.g., m/f, 0/1, etc
ORDINAL DATA
* ordered but differences between values are not important
* e.g., political parties on left to right spectrum given labels 0, 1, 2
* e.g., Likert scales, rank on a scale of 1..5 your degree of satisfaction
* e.g., restaurant ratings
INTERVAL DATA
* ordered, constant scale, but no natural zero
* differences make sense, but ratios do not (e.g., 30°-20°=20°-10°, but 20°/10° is not twic
as hot!
* e.g., temperature (C,F), dates
RATIO DATA
* ordered, constant scale, natural zero
* e.g., height, weight, age, length

Nominal
basically refers to categorically discrete data such as name of your sch
ool, type of car you drive or name of a book. This one is easy to remember becau
se nominal sounds like name (they have the same Latin root).

Ordinal
refers to quantities that have a natural ordering. The ranking of favori
te sports, the order of people's place in a line, the order of runners finishing
a race or more often the choice on a rating scale from 1 to 5. With ordinal dat
a you cannot state with certainty whether the intervals between each value are e
qual. For example, we often using rating scales (Likert questions). On a 10 poin
t scale, the difference between a 9 and a 10 is not necessarily the same differe
nce as the difference between a 6 and a 7. This is also an easy one to remember,
ordinal sounds like order.

Interval data
is like ordinal except we can say the intervals between each value are e
qually split. The most common example is temperature in degrees Fahrenheit. The
difference between 29 and 30 degrees is the same magnitude as the difference bet
ween 78 and 79 (although I know I prefer the latter). With attitudinal scales an
d the Likert questions you usually see on a survey, these are rarely interval, a
lthough many points on the scale likely are of equal intervals.
Ratio data
is interval data with a natural zero point. For example, time is ratio s
ince 0 time is meaningful. Degrees Kelvin has a 0 point (absolute 0) and the ste
ps in both these scales have the same degree of magnitude.

1) GDP Deflator reflects prices of all goods and services produced within the co
untry, whereas CPI reflects the prices of a representative basket of goods and s
ervices purchased by the consumers.
2) CPI uses a fixed basket of goods and services whereas the GDP deflator compar
ed the price of currently produced goods relative to price of goods in the base
year