Two-Step Calibration of Design Weights in Survey Sampling

• Activity Number: 434
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 6, 2013 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Survey Research Methods Section
• Author(s): Sarjinder Singh*+ and Stephen Andrew Sedory
• Companies: Texas A&M University-Kingsville and Texas A&M University-Kingsville
• Keywords: Calibration ; Estimation of the population total ; bias and mean squared error

Abstract

In this paper, a new two-step technique for the calibration of design weights is proposed. In the first step, the calibration weights are set proportional to the design weights in a given sample. In the second step, the constants of proportionality are determined based on different objectives of the investigator such as bias reduction or minimum mean squared error. Many estimators available in the literature can be shown to be special cases of the proposed two-step calibrated estimator. A simulation study, based on a real data set, is included at the end. A few technical issues are raised with respect to the use of the proposed calibration technique, both limitations and benefits are discussed.