On the occurrence of large gaps in small contingency tables

Abstract

Examples of small contingency tables on binary random variables with large integer programming gaps on the lower bounds of cell entries were constructed by Sullivant. We argue here that the margins for which these constructed large gaps occur are rarely encountered, thus reopening the question of whether linear programming is an effective heuristic for detecting disclosures when releasing margins of multi-way tables. The notion of ``rarely encountered'' is made precise through the language of standard pairs.