Construction of a Retail Outlet Establishment Frame Using Commercially Available Lists

• Activity Number: 414
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 3, 2010 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Government Statistics
• Author(s): Benita Jean O'Colmain*+ and Paula Ellen Mason and Pedro Saavedra and Jeffrey E. Foarde Jr. and Bin Zhang and Amerine Woodyard
• Companies: ICF Macro and Energy Information Administration and ICF Macro and ICF Macro and Energy Information Administration and Energy Information Administration
• Keywords: sampling frame ; establishment survey ; record linkage ; business register ; list-based frame

Abstract

The sample design for the EIA weekly diesel price survey was historically a two-phase design in which a company/state (CSU) sub-sample of two cycles of a monthly survey was selected. The second phase included a second stage where the sampled companies identified their retail outlets which were then randomly selected to represent the company. The sampling restrictions imposed by the first phase, as well as the potential for bias in the second phase, led to the construction of an outlet level sampling frame and a redesigned sampling methodology. The sampling frame was constructed using commercially-based lists of truck stops and gas stations selling diesel fuel along with information from related EIA surveys. The process by which the lists were identified, screened, selected and combined is described as well as an evaluation of the overall level of coverage that each provided.