Weighting and Prediction in Sample Surveys

Sample Surveys

A census is a complete enumeration of the population: data are collected from every unit in the population. In a survey, a subset of the population, called a sample, is taken. Census are taken at regular but infrequent intervals, e.g. every 5 or 10 years. In between, surveys are used to update results. The selection and estimation procedures of official surveys are almost always based on previo...

Sample Surveys

1. What is a Survey? 2. Probability sampling 3. Common probability sampling designs 3.1. Simple Random Sampling 3.2. Stratified Sampling 3.3. Cluster Sampling 3.4. Unequal Probability Sampling 3.5. Systematic Sampling 3.6. Stratified Multistage Sampling 4. Survey estimates and standard errors 5. Nonsampling errors 6. Sampling rare populations 7. Issues in Survey Design Acknowledgments Glossary ...

Errors in Sample Surveys

Median Estimation in Sample Surveys

In a recent paper Maritz and Jarrett (1978) proposed a small-sample estimate of the variance of sample medians from continuous population. In this paper their methods are adapted to median estimation in s~atified sampling without replacement from finite populations. A weighted sample median for estimating the median of heavy-tailed or skewed populations is proposed. Its asymptotic normal distri...

Methods for Extreme Weights in Sample Surveys Methods for Extreme Weights in Sample Surveys

In survey sampling practice, planned and unplanned variation in the sampling weights can result in inflated sampling variances. As a result, extreme sampling weights are sometimes trimmed to reduce the sampling variance. However, when sampling weights are trimmed, a bias can be introduced into the survey estimates. The goal of sampling weight trimming is to reduce the sampling variance while av...