1 Introduction

2 Statistical methods
2.1 The full shell estimator in cylinders
2.2 Pair-counting estimators
2.3 The gradient of galaxy counts in cylinders

3 Tests of selection effects on artificial distribution

4 Results on real galaxy samples
4.1 Sloan Digital Sky Survey
4.2 The Two Degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey
4.3 The Two Micron All Sky Galaxy Redshift Survey

5 Discussion and Conclusions