Cumulative histogram of pseudo luminosities for the known MSP population in the ATNF database. The left axis is labelled with the cumulative fraction of MSPs; the right axis is labelled with survey completeness for each candidate. The errors on the pseudo luminosity upper limits contain errors on the distance, pulse duty cycle and our estimate of the relevant range of (S/N_min) values used with the pulsar radiometer equation (see Sect. 4).