More for Less? Comparing Small-Area Estimation, Spatial Microsimulation, and Mass Imputation

• Activity Number: 85
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Sunday, August 1, 2010 : 4:00 PM to 5:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods
• Author(s): Stephen John Haslett*+ and Geoffrey Jones and Alasdair Dewar Noble and Dimitris Ballas
• Companies: Massey University and Massey University and Massey University and University of Sheffield
• Keywords: spatial microsimulation ; small area estimation ; mass imputation ; combining data

Abstract

Combining data sources is often seen as a panacea, having the potential to produce more to produce cost-effective, accurate, fine-level statistics for a lower cost. This paper clarifies conditions under which Official Statistics data sources, particularly surveys and censuses or surveys and administrative sources, should and should not be combined using statistical models based on mass imputation, spatial microsimulation, and small area and domain estimation. The theoretical links between these three techniques are explored. The wider research from which this paper is a report considers the relevant literature in depth, further develops existing statistical methods, considers their application in principle to set of case studies in sociology, economics, and business, and provides guidelines for use of the three techniques based on this research.